MEN, WOMEN, AND GOD

A DISCUSSION OF SEX QUESTIONS FROM THE CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW

BYTHE REV. A. HERBERT GRAY, D. D. 

AUTHOR OF"THE CHRISTIAN ADVENTURE, " "AS TOMMY SEES US, " ETC. 

TO MY WIFE

WHO FOR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS HAS BEEN MY CHIEF TEACHER AND HAS INTERPRETEDLIFE AND GOD TO ME THROUGH THE CONTENTS OF THE DAILY ROUND

PREFACE

This book has been written at the request of the Student ChristianMovement, and is addressed in the first place to men and women of thestudent age. I have undertaken the task with great gladness because mylong and happy contact with men and women through the Student Movementhas taught me how great is the need for a fuller understanding of theproblems of sex, and how possible it is that men and women should findhelp through the timely suggestion of right and wholesome thoughts. 

My brother, Dr. Charles Gray of London, has contributed a very valuableappendix dealing with certain facts in a way which is only possible toa medical man, and I am very greatly indebted to him for thus enrichingthis volume. 

It will be apparent to all who read it that I also owe a great deal tomany who have shared with me their knowledge and experience. Inparticular I owe much gratitude to a number of generous-hearted womenwho have enabled me to write the chapters which are more especiallyaddressed to their sex. 

I have deliberately omitted from these pages any reference to disease. I do that not because I am not impressed by the terrible penalties withwhich nature visits certain sins, but because I do not believe in thepower of fear to deliver us. Though there were no such thing asvenereal disease, immorality would still be a way of death, andmorality would still be the way of life and joy. Till we perceive thatwe are not on the path of progress. 

Books of this sort have generally been addressed specially either tomen or to women. I write to both alike because I am quite sure thatuntil men and women understand and help each other, there is going tobe no happy solution to the problems of sex. When they do so learn toco-operate I believe we shall as a race find our way out into thatlarger and happier life which can only be ours when we have acceptedthe facts of sex and learnt to use them to the enrichment of human lifeand the glory of God. 

A. HERBERT GRAY. 

_Glasgow, _ 1922. 

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

I. KNOWING THE FACTS

II. COMRADESHIP

III. LOVE

IV. FALLING IN LOVE AND GETTING ENGAGED

V. OUR MORAL STANDARDS

VI. A MAN'S STRUGGLE

VII. PROSTITUTION--A CHAPTER FOR MEN

VIII. A GIRL'S EARLY DAYS

IX. INVOLUNTARY CELIBACY

X. THE ART OF BEING MARRIED

XI. UNHAPPY MARRIAGES

XII. THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS

XIII. FORGETTING THE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND

APPENDIX--SOME OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTS. BY A. CHARLES E. GRAY, M. D. 

INTRODUCTION

In the following pages I propose to write simply and plainly about thesocial, personal, and bodily relations of men and women, and about theways in which their common life may attain to happiness, harmony, andefficiency. 

I shall deal with matters often handled only with much diffidence, andthought of with uncomfortable reserve. And I address myself to men andwomen alike. 

I do it all on the basis of one assumption, namely, that a God of lovein designing our human nature cannot have put into it anything which isincapable of a pure and happy exercise; and in particular that inmaking the sex interest so central, permanent, and powerful in humanbeings He must have had some great and beautiful purpose. I start, infact, with the faith that the sexual elements in our humanity, oncerightly understood and finely handled, make for the enrichment of humanlife, for the increase of our health and efficiency, and theheightening of our joy. I believe that nothing is more necessary forthe world to-day than that we should trace out the ways in which thistremendous life force that is implanted in us all may be used toforward the higher aims of our common life, and to help the race on itsupward march. And yet even as I write the word "sexual" I cannot butremember that the mere word will for many good people produce asensation of distaste. Partly because they have a sincere passion forpurity, and partly because this whole subject has been defiled for themby the excesses and indecencies of mankind, they doubt whether it canbe right or useful to think about it at all. They regard the facts ofsex with a mixture of fear, perplexity, and shame, and take themselvesto task if still some curiosity about them lingers in their minds. Therefore before I go any further I would like to ask such people torealize that they are denying my initial assumption. They have not yetcome to believe that there is any divine and holy purpose enshrined inthe sexual side of life, although God is responsible for its place inour humanity; and I would beg them forthwith to think this matter out. 

Sex is no accident in our humanity. The function of the sexual elementsin our physical frame is so central that unless they be truly managedhealth and strength are impossible. Their relation is no less vital toour mental and aesthetic life, and they appear to control almostabsolutely our nervous stability. No man or woman attains to fullnessand harmony of life if the sexual nature be either neglected ormismanaged. No society is strong and happy unless this part of life istruly adjusted. It may even be said that the evils that come throughthe mismanagement of sex relations have beaten every civilization up tothe present. And no doubt it is natural enough to shudder over theabominations of prostitution and sex vice in general, and so to turnour minds away from the whole matter. But for all that our emotionalenergies would be better employed in trying to understand this titanicforce, and in learning how it may be utilized for our upward progress. Mere prohibitions have so utterly and entirely failed us that we oughtnow to realize that there is no hope in them alone. What we need is apositive constructive ideal for this part of life which will indicatethe real value of the sexual forces in us, and not leave young men andwomen partly perplexed, partly ashamed, and partly annoyed because theyare as the Creator made them. 

And so I repeat we must begin with the assumption that, though we havenot yet spelt it out, God must have had some great purpose of love whenHe created men and women with a clamant sex instinct at the center oftheir personalities. 

Hebrew instinct declared that "God saw everything that He had made, andbehold it was very good. " Christian instinct must repeat the verdictwith vastly increased conviction, for our humanity is such that the Sonof God could wear it. He was not ashamed to call us brethren, and to betempted like as we are. To suggest that in passion and in its exerciseat the bidding of love there need be anything that is not holy, is toarraign the Creator. Sex love abused and misunderstood has indeedstrewn the world with tragedies and disease. But sex love is going toremain. Not until we have learnt to make it an instrument for theperfection of life and the heightening of vitality can we hope to reachthe life which the love of God designed for us; and to that we shallnot attain until we have dared to acquire knowledge and throughknowledge to attain to wisdom. 

The ideal which still lingers in many minds, though it is seldom openlyconfessed, is that boys and girls, young men and women, should be keptin complete ignorance of the truth about their sexual natures untilthey marry, and that then they should be left to learn all that theyneed to know from Mother Nature direct. That at least would seem to bea fair inference from the fact of the conspiracy of silence in whichninety per cent of parents have engaged towards the beings they lovebest. 

Unfortunately in order to carry out the policy thus implied it would benecessary to keep children from associating with other children, toforbid them to read the Bible, the great classics of literature, andthe daily papers--to keep them from the theatre, and from the study ofnature--in fact to bring them up in a world which does not exist. Forin all the ways I have suggested do boys and girls now collect garbled, half-true, and distorted notions about sexual life. And even if it werepossible to carry out the policy it would still not be desirable. Marriage is not the simple and easy thing which the policy would imply. Mother Nature does not teach young couples all that they need to know. Often they make serious mistakes in the first few days. Often theymishandle and spoil the beautiful relationship on which they haveentered to their own disgust and disappointment. Uncounted couplesto-day have reason for the bitterness with which they complain thatnobody ever taught or helped them. In fact the policy of silence is ascruel as its assumptions are untrue. Ignorance is an impossibility forthe young. Our choice lies between garbled, distorted, and defiledknowledge and a knowledge that shall be clean, innocent, and helpful. It has often happened that men and women brought up on the policy ofsilence have first learnt the facts about life through some contactwith vice or sin, and those who know what horrible sufferings suddendiscoveries of that sort may mean for sensitive natures cannot possiblyhave any doubts remaining on this point. There are few more cruelthings possible than to bring a girl up in the ignorance which ismistaken for innocence and then to allow her to go out into the worldto learn the truth by chance, or through some unclean mind. 

That is why I gladly address myself to the task of this book, in whichat least some of the truth is told. 

Of course the real issue that stands in the background here is the onewhich concerns the nature of true spirituality. We are all agreed thatthe essential greatness of man lies in the fact that in him spirit mayrule everything else. And until spirit does thus rule he has notreached his true life, But the question of the place of the body in thefull life of man still remains to be faced and thought out. 

The hermits of the desert assumed that the way of true life lay in therepression of all bodily desire and as much negation of the body as isconsistent with mere existence. But in fact they often succeeded inmaking life disgusting, and generally in making it useless. It may bedoubted whether they contributed anything to the real problem ofcivilization. Yet their mistake is still repeated in part by many goodpeople. Many still think that the way of the higher life consists inforgetting the body as much as possible in order that the soul may livein freedom. They admit the body's needs with reluctance, and treat itas something with no essential relation to their spiritual activities. Often they willfully neglect the duty of health. Still more often theybelieve they ought to regard with disapproval the clamant desires andcravings of our bodily natures. But in so doing they miss the realsignificance of the Incarnation. Our life here is an embodied life, andit cannot be fine unless the body is finely tempered. That body isdesigned as the instrument through which the spirit may findexpression. The first essential no doubt is to submit it to disciplineand so reduce it to the place of a servant. At all costs it must bebrought under control. It must be understood, and kept in good health. And if these things be neglected the life of the spirit is hampered anddepressed. But still spirit must express itself through body, and allthe wealth of powers with which body is endowed has significance andworth. 

For this reason the attempt to keep spiritual and bodily activitiesseparate always revenges itself upon its authors. On the one hand itleads to an impoverishment of the spiritual life, for on these termsthe spirit is left with no fine instrument through which to expressitself in the real world. And on the other hand, bodily activitiesdivorced from the control of the spirit tend to become mere animalthings and so to produce disgust and degeneration. 

But indeed the body cannot without disaster be simply ignored. Theattempt merely to repress its manifold urgencies leads to a state inwhich these forces seek out for themselves abnormal channels ofactivity, so destroying the harmony and balance of life. The essentialglory of human beings lies in the fact that in them body and spirit maybe so wedded that their activities are woven into one harmonious whole. It was in a moment of real insight that Robert Browning cried--

 "Let us not always say, 'Spite of this flesh to-day, I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole. ' As the bird wings and sings, Let us cry, 'All good thingsAre ours, nor soul helps flesh more now, than flesh helps soul. '"

Now all this is supremely true of the sexual part of life. If mere lustis the vilest thing on earth, pure love is the most beautiful. And whenpure love dominates a life all the sexual activities of the body may betransmuted and redeemed until a complete life is attained in which allthe primal forces of our beings find a happy exercise under the controlof a passion that is at once physical, mental, and spiritual. But thebody is not in this process denied. It is accepted, understood, andmade to play its true part. If passion be truly handled it provides thedriving force for a life that is effective, courageous, and joyous. Heis most truly living a spiritual life who has learnt to use all thepowers of his incarnate nature in a life of strenuous activity andloyal love. 

I do not mean of course that there is no place in the highest type oflife for renunciation. Nor do I mean for a moment that only in marriagecan greatness and fullness of life be attained. It is hard to use wordscorrectly at a time when special meanings have come to be attached tosuch words as repression and suppression. What the psychologists havediscovered is that unconscious, or incomplete, or unaccepted repressionof bodily instincts leads to a dangerous condition. He who has notreally surrendered desire, but simply tried to drive it underground, may indeed reap troubles enough and to spare. 

But it needs no psychological training to know that deliberate, sincere, and courageous renunciation of this or that bodily desire forthe sake of some compelling ideal may lead to the very finest kind oflife. Only in this process the body is not ignored. It is taken intoaccount. Nor are its forces neglected. Through the process technicallydescribed as sublimation, a way is to be found whereby life forcerestrained in one direction finds other and most valuable ways ofexpression. 

 * * * * *

I write this book as one who has learnt to thank God for all theelements in our normal humanity, and I send it out with the prayer inmy heart that through it some may be helped to a truer understandingof themselves which will ease their way to success and joy and to thatfullness of human life which is the divine intention for us. 

CHAPTER I

KNOWING THE FACTS

The first essential equipment for a right journey through the countryof sexual experience is that we should know the truth about our bodies--those temples of the Holy Ghost--and should understand the meaning ofthe emotions and desires which connect themselves with our physicalconstitution. 

Further, because the problem of sex can only be solved by thecooperation of the sexes working together in mutual understanding it isright that men should know a good deal about women's bodies and viceversa. Such knowledge almost always begets sympathy and a certainintelligent tenderness. The lack of it has often led to unconsciouscruelties, to misunderstandings, and even to serious mistakes. Tomention one instance only, how can men be expected to treat the othersex with true consideration if they do not know that once a month for aperiod women ought to be saved from fatigue and strain? And yet thereare many adult men in that position of ignorance. 

But though the detailed facts are all clean, and really easy to beunderstood, the manner in which they are conveyed into our minds is ofvital importance. I do not think they can be fully conveyed through anyprinted page. They are too delicate for such handling. They are nottruly conveyed unless behind the mere words which express them there isa reverent soul that can impart the right tone and emphasis to them. Iwould quite gladly attempt to put them all down here could I only beassured that my words would only be read by men or women when alone andin a reverent mood. That being impossible I can only begin by insistingthat they ought to be known. And this I can also do--I can assure allyoung people who read these pages that there is nothing whatever in thefacts of the case to be afraid of--nothing that they cannot know withperfectly clean minds. There are no terrible mysteries in the matter. There are no horrors in normal sex life. The truth even about theultimate intimacies of body between men and women is that when trulyachieved they are beautiful, and holy, and happy. 

But how are young people to get the right knowledge? The worst possibleway in which to get it is to pick it up bit by bit in connection withevil stories, the reports of divorce cases, and the hints of vice whichlurk in life's shadowy corners. Yet that has been the most common wayin the past. Quite little boys have passed on mysterious stories frommouth to mouth defiling the whole matter. Many girls have first begunto wonder and to ask questions when they first heard of an illegitimatechild. Words in the Bible, such as "lasciviousness" and so on, havestarted mere school children asking questions to which probably theyonly got distorted answers from other school children. Just becausetheir parents did not tell them anything, they have assumed that theremust be something to be ashamed of in the truth. And so ninety per centof boys, and I know not what proportion of girls, have the subject ofsex spoiled for them even before adolescence. Sex, sexual experience, passion, and so on are things they think half unclean and yetannoyingly interesting. They are half ashamed, and yet remain curious. Some are half afraid. Some rather more than half disgusted. Some indeedtry to banish the whole subject from their minds. This may seem to be arefined thing to do; but, as we know with a new definiteness since thepsychologists have explored the matter, it is really a disastrous thingto do. For to adapt ourselves to sex is one of the problems that cannotbe escaped. In this world we cannot live the disembodied life. What wemay do is to live a clean and happy bodily life, but only if we buildour house of life on knowledge. 

Wherefore to all young men and women I would say--Get to know the realtruth from someone you can trust. Go to some older man or woman with aclean mind and a large heart, and learn about yourself. Of course thebest people in the world to go to are your own parents; but if for anyreason that resource is not open to you, go to a doctor or a ministeror some senior friend. It is worth while to take a lot of trouble tofind the right person, and it is still more worth while to take troubleto avoid the wrong person. Find someone who has seen the hand of God inthe facts of sex and who can therefore talk about them withoutembarrassment. And do not let yourself be deterred by the fact that youmay have made mistakes already of which you are ashamed. Most of usmade mistakes in our early years just because of the same ignorancewhich has been your fate. And therefore we are not shocked. We are justsorry, and would like to help. It is not true that mistakes inevitablyspoil the future. Forgiveness, recovery, and new life are possibilitiesfor us all. And if you have already made mistakes through ignorance, that is but one reason more why you should know the truth withoutdelay. When you are told the truth you will be learning something aboutGod as well as about yourself, for He made you. 

Nor is it only for your own sake that you ought to know. If you want toachieve helpful relations to men or women, and ultimately to achieve aright relation to husband or wife, you need to know the plain factsabout our incarnate life. Men and women often make the right way oflife more difficult for each other by mere ignorance. You need to knowif you are to be really kind. 

I cannot forget that when young men and women of sensitive and refinednatures come to this knowledge all at once, when already adults, it mayat first create a sense of repulsion. It does not do so for those whohave learnt the facts bit by bit as they were ready for them. In thatcase they are accepted easily and naturally. But with the others it maywell be that just because they have clean and delicate minds, they mayat first experience some real distaste when they come to understand thecreative processes through which they were born. But to any such Iwould say that against that possibility they may be forearmed, if theywill but believe that when love takes two people into its charge thephysical consequences all come to seem natural and right and sacred. You need never know anything of these matters at first hand except whenreal love for some man or woman has mastered you, and then theexperiences to which that love will lead you will be found to be pure, and simple, and happy. If you approach this part of life withreluctance or in fear, or with some mistaken sense of shame, you mayspoil it, and spoil somebody else's life in addition. But if you willbelieve this plain witness, which thousands would unite in offeringyou, you may be greatly helped. Ultimately your way to success in thispart of life lies in accepting your nature with its sexual elements--not in trying to be a sexless person. That is not the way of purity. Itis the way of folly. Therefore again I say--Do not be afraid of thefacts. Those who have traveled that country report to you "There isnothing here to be afraid of--at least there used to be nothing. "

And now in case these pages are read by some young married persons whostill have before them the chance to serve their own children in thismatter, may I insist that a solemn obligation rests on them to see thattheir children learn the truth in a simple and natural way from thelips of their fathers and mothers? The ideal way in this connection isthat children should learn about their own bodies from the same peoplewho first tell them about God and goodness. When that happens there isno danger that they will slip into an unclean attitude towards sex, forchildren nearly always accept the things their parents tell them asnatural and right things. 

Perhaps the first step in the way is to decide never to tell childrenanything that is not strictly true. When your little girls or boys askhow babies come, tell them that they could not understand, but that youwill tell them as soon as they are old enough. And then very early tellthem at least that babies come from the bodies of their mothers. Thefirst wrong turn that the thoughts of many of us took in connectionwith sex was when some older person was made embarrassed or angry byour natural questions. We made a note then and there that there must besomething queer and wrong about the way babies come, and the impressionsank down into the unconscious part of us to bring forth mischief foryears to come. But if a parent's own attitude to sex is clean and truehe or she will find it quite possible to tell the plain truth toinnocent little minds. The first bit of knowledge imparted, namely thatbabies come from the bodies of their mothers, will often beget a newattitude of regard and chivalry in children towards their own mothers. I can say with certainty that it is very good for a boy to know thatfor his sake his own mother once went through both pain and risk. 

And then let the rest all come naturally. It is better to tell yourchildren in almost any way than not to tell them at all, but the bestway is not to make a solemn occasion of the telling, but to let theknowledge pass from you to them as incidents and occasions suggest. Ifyou have contact with nature in common with your children the occasionswill be many for telling them about flower and animal life. And thiswill naturally lead on to instruction about human beings. Even if suchcontact with nature should be impossible, life in any place and in anyguise will assuredly present you with opportunities for your teaching. And in any case try to get in _first_. Before the slime of schoolboytalk or the follies of schoolgirl talk have defiled thesubject tell your children about it, as about something sacred andbeautiful--much too sacred and beautiful for the chatter of idle hoursin playgrounds, etc. You will be surprised, if you have forgotten yourown childhood, how early it is necessary to do all this if you are toget in first. No general rules about the right age can be laid down. Children differ enormously in regard to the ages at which they passfrom stage to stage in their development. You will need to watch and tounderstand. Above all do not let your telling take the form of mereprohibitions. Do not let it stand related in the first case to warningsagainst sins. You do not want to associate the idea of sin in the firstcase with this subject at all. What you can do is to implant a certainreverence in a child's mind in relation to the whole matter, and if yousucceed in that you will have forearmed your child against sin. I longto know that children are learning about sex not in association withscoldings, reproofs, and warnings, but rather as part of the splendidtruth of God. It is the association of the facts of sex with the sinsof men and women that has spoilt this part of life for most minds. Ofcourse it is only kind to tell boys and girls where it is that they maygo wrong--it _is_ necessary to put them on their guard. But thatshould be a secondary matter--a mere addition to your teaching. 

My own experience as a minister has brought to my knowledge severalvery pathetic instances of how young girls get into very serioustrouble just through lack of the knowledge their mothers ought to havegiven them. It seems possible still for a girl even of seventeen oreighteen, or even much older, to be almost incredibly ignorant, and nowords are too strong to describe the cruelty of allowing them to facelife in that condition. 

In any case let your teaching be, in general terms at least, completebefore adolescence. If you wait till adolescence has begun, the tellingmay cause undue excitement. If you finish your general teaching beforethat stage it will save your child from much unwholesome curiosity. 

And here, though the subject must necessarily be distasteful to many, as it is to myself, I must put in a word about self-abuse. [Footnote:Knowing from experience that a good many parents do not even know whatself-abuse means, let me simply say that it consists in such handlingof the genital organs as creates emotional and physical sexualexcitement of a kind that is obviously unnatural. ] In recent years alarge number of men have given me their confidence, so that I am notspeaking from hearsay when I state that a percentage of men whichprobably approximates to seventy-five are, at least for a time, victimsof this habit. 

I know that it is easy to exaggerate the physical and mental evileffects of it. But what is beyond all question is that it produces badpsychic consequences, and does so leave men out of conceit withthemselves that when they realize that they have become victims to thehabit their mental sufferings are often pitifully acute. Indeed, it isbecause my pity and sympathy have been so drawn out to many men I knowthat I cannot forbear to speak on behalf of those who may yet be savedfrom it. The facts about it are that the habit is often begun at analmost inconceivably early age. It is very often begun without anysense that it is wrong, and certainly without any knowledge of how evilit is. And once it has been begun, it is horribly hard to abandon. Uncounted good men have to confess to-day that in their younger daysthey never did achieve liberation in spite of constant efforts. Uncounted men have brought about in this way a certain perversion oftheir natures with regard to their sexual functions which clouded theirlives for many years. And yet the cure for this situation is verysimple and almost easy. The men who have completely escaped practicallyall testify that they owe their immunity to the kindly and timelyadvice of some wise senior. The habit is _not_ natural, and thereforeit is _not_ hard never to begin it. If it has not been begun in boyhooda very little determination will keep an adult man from falling intoit. And this means that in this case parents can, if they will, savethe rising generation. Perhaps it is mothers chiefly who will have torender this service just because the habit is begun so very early, while boys are still in very close association with their mothers. Imay seem to be contradicting what I have just said about mere warnings, but I would certainly say that any sort of arresting warning is betterthan inaction in the matter. Yet even in this matter any kind of harshwarning is not the best way. A boy can be taught that there is acertain sanctity about certain parts of his body. He can be taught totreat them scrupulously and hardily. He can be given positive ideaswhich will save him, though I also believe that he ought to be toldwith definiteness to avoid this particular snare. I know of no othercase in which a little wise love and timely vigilance may have suchtremendous results in saving a child from future suffering and mistake. Does anything more need to be said to mothers who really love theirsons!

I have written these things about boys and men because it is in thatconnection that I can speak from first-hand knowledge. But severalwomen doctors have told me of late that there is a very real need thatgirls also should be helped in view of the similar danger which lies intheir path. With them the habit is no doubt much less common. But it iscommon enough, and has serious enough consequences, to constitute acall to parents in their case also. 

Most of those who read these pages will themselves be young. If theyhave troubled to read the paragraphs I have just written a number ofthem will, I know, be moved to say to themselves, "We would giveanything if our parents had done these things for us. " Yes! it is agreat pity they did not. But do not be hard upon your parents. Theywere the victims of a wrong tradition. The conspiracy of silence had intheir day been given almost religious sanctions. Some of them werethemselves embarrassed by the whole subject just because no cleanpersuasions about it were current in their youth. That was theircalamity, as it has in part been yours. But no such calamity needovertake your children. If you can and will cleanse your minds now--ifyou will take this whole subject out into the cleansing light of God, and look at it there till you have seen the divine truth about sex--ifyou can escape embarrassment and attain to thankfulness, then you willbe able to keep this whole matter clean for your children. Yourgeneration has suffered much. The next need not. And remember thatwhatever doctors, teachers, and ministers may do for the nation, itmust be parents who will save us in the long run. 

You at least can get ready. 

CHAPTER II

COMRADESHIP

The first outstanding social consequence of sex is the mutualattraction of young men and women in general. With apologies in themeantime to the girls who "have no use for men" and to the queer menwho "don't like girls, " I propose to speak to the great majority. Tomany a healthy and normal man there is nothing so wonderful orbeautiful in all God's earth as a woman. And the converse is oftentrue. The most interesting thing about the world for many of each sexis that the other sex is in it also. 

Those who share the assumption on which this book is written will agreethat an influence so strong, so profound, and so universal must havesome fine significance in the divine scheme of things. It is an elementin humanity which must affect the whole of life. To handle it rightlymust be necessary if life as a whole is to succeed. And the first steptowards a right handling of it is to accept the fact of it gladly andopenly. The convention lingers that it is a little weak in a man toadmit that he needs and craves woman's society, and that for a girl toadmit the converse is not quite modest. And thus there is often acertain furtive element in the relations of the sexes between fifteenand twenty-five which is all of it a great pity. It is here that Mrs. Grundy has done us real injury. The poor old dear has been so fussy andnervous about it all. She has often tried to close the doors upon freeand wholesome fellowship, and so has driven the young to find out otherways of meeting. But even she has not been able to keep the sexesapart. The truth is that the mutual relations of men and women in therealm of comradeship, and quite apart from marriage, may be so happyand enriching--so exhilarating and so bracing--that one may reverentlysay the whole arrangement of having divided mankind into two suchgroups, is one of the most splendid of the divine thoughts. For many aman the joy and worth of life depend largely upon women. The things hegets on his journey from his mother, his sisters, and his girl friends--from his wife, his daughters, and the women friends of later days arethe golden things in life. And I know that many a woman would say acorresponding thing about the life career of a woman. That is God'splan--to make us dependent on one another for the stimuli, theinspirations, and the joys which prevent life from becoming drab andmonotonous. "In the beginning God made them male and female, " becauseHe loved them. He made them gloriously different that they might enjoyand help each other. 

It is one of the mysteries of history that for uncounted centuries manimagined that he only needed woman in her capacity as a wife andpotential mother--that for long ages woman had no place in societyexcept as wife or mother. Why it was so long before the spirit of Godmoved women to shatter that conception, I do not understand. But withits shattering there appeared for a time a tendency to imagine that menand women are in most things practically the same, and that thedifference of sex is a very little thing. Many people seemed inclinedto believe that a woman is just the same sort of being as a man, exceptfor one special function--that of motherhood--which can only beexercised occasionally, and need not be exercised at all. That I amsure was a mistake with the possibility of disaster in it. No doubtthere are men with many feminine characteristics, and women with manymasculine ones. But woman is not only physically different from man. She is different mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. And that isjust why we need her so much in all life's departments. 

We need woman in politics, for instance, just because she is differentfrom man. If the extension of the franchise to some millions of womenhad meant merely that the number of people had been increased who wouldthink and vote simply as men had previously thought and voted, it wouldhave been no great event. If women members of Parliament are going tobe mere replicas of the old type of M. P. , then they might as well savethemselves the bondage of Westminster, for their presence there willmake no valuable difference. But we do need them in the constituenciesand in the House exactly because they bring new and different vitalforces to bear on the conduct of affairs. Experience is alreadyteaching us that men and women think more truly together than they doapart. There is something about the sweep and range of man's thoughtwhich is peculiarly stimulating to woman's mind, and there are aspectsof truth to which men remain blind until women point them out. For thisreason very often mixed committees act more wisely than committees ofonly one sex. I suspect that the same thing holds in relation to art, and even to scientific work. It certainly holds in connection withsocial work, and church work. In fact in all life's departments, with afew obvious exceptions, men and women supplement and stimulate oneanother, and by comradeship make a bigger and better thing of life thanwould be possible otherwise. 

I am not assuming that a fine comradeship is necessarily an easy thingto achieve. I should be surprised if it were, for I know of no finethings that can be attained easily. Comradeship between the sexes israpidly spoilt by "silliness. " It has to be based upon a considerableamount of restraint. It can be and it ought to be "jolly, " but itbecomes a poor thing at once when either man or woman forgets dignity. We are still at the experimental stage in traveling through this newcountry that has opened up to us within the last twenty years; and ifthat is a reason for being very charitable about mistakes, it is also areason for being alert to find the right paths. 

I am very much impressed by the opportunity that lies before studentsas a class in this matter. In most of our universities and colleges menand women meet in the freest way, and they only and for themselves candiscover how this new kind of life is best conducted. College rules andregulations are not going to do it for them. Indeed the oldergeneration is not going to do it for them. But if they will find outthe right way and establish for themselves the right standards andconventions, they may do an immense service for the rest of the nation. And I believe they are already in large measure doing this. Myexperience has on the whole made me entirely hopeful, and has deepenedmy faith in the fitness of men and women for freedom. 

None the less and although I belong to the older generation, I proposeto offer some suggestions for this part of life. I cannot make much useof the word "flirting. " It has nearly as many different meanings asBolshevism. By some people it is applied to any high-spirited and happyintercourse between men and women, in which case it signifies only aright and good thing. Some people mean by it "playing at being inlove, " in which case it is a silly and unworthy occupation which sapsthe real love power in men and women. Others again mean by it the wholebundle of silly and sentimental manners which some men and some womenassume when in the presence of the other sex, and in that sense of theword flirting means just exactly the foolish thing that common sensewould declare it to be. What I am quite sure of is that success in thiscomradeship between the sexes depends upon the discovery of a right waywhich lies between the coldness which is the negation of goodfellowship, and the undue familiarity which is both dangerous andundignified. We men have in the past been accustomed to boast that wewill go just as far towards familiarity as women will allow, and havedeclared that this whole matter is one which women must regulate. Maleopinion on the whole used to regard a man as something less than asport who would not take liberties wherever he saw they would not beresented. To use any sort of compulsion was indeed held to beungentlemanly, but short of that men have recognized no compulsion ofhonor bidding them refrain from familiarities. "That's the girl'saffair, " they have often said. But this is really a flagrant case ofthe way in which we men deceive ourselves and assume positions that areboth dishonest and cruel. I call this particular one dishonest becauseit is absurd for us to pretend that our expectations and desires haveno influence on girls, and that therefore we have no responsibility forevents. Of course girls will tend to give what men in general persistin asking. They are just as human as we are. Our conventionalassumption that they are always mistresses of the situation--models ofperfect self-mastery and understanding--is ridiculous and unkind. It isthe age-long injustice which men have practiced towards women topretend that they are creatures without passion and by nature alwaysin control of their emotions. We know it is not true, and yet we act onthe pretence that it is. And I call this position of ours cruel becausethere is no reason whatever why we should try to lay on women the wholeburden of refining and controlling our mutual relations. Why should wenot take our share of the task? Since history began we have asked manythings of women, and then kept our real respect for those who refusedthem--a mean and cowardly attitude. Women are not angels and it is meresentimental nonsense to pretend that they are. But they can be splendidcompanions when men help them towards the attaining of thatrelationship. Often we have seemed to want of them only sentimentaldalliance, with the result that they often grant it. But many womenwould rather pass men by altogether than meet them in that way, although most really long for some relationship that will call intoexercise the mental, aesthetic, and spiritual powers of both men andwomen. Indeed there is ground for this charge against both men andwomen, that often in social intercourse with one another they suspendthe exercise of the finer parts of their natures. We have all known menof great intellectual gifts and wide experience who when "the ladies"appear promptly put on the garb of mere triflers. And we have alsoknown women with very real literary, or artistic, or intellectual giftswho treat men primarily as beings to be played with. And so do manypeople miss the enriching joys of companionship, and make socialintercourse petty and wearisome. I believe most women want to knowwhatever is big and strong and efficient in men and not merely to findout whether they are good at badinage. And though many men think theyare afraid of serious and clever women, they really in their heartswant to discover the responsible and sincere qualities in thepersonalities of girls and not merely the surface ones. 

God forbid that we should banish chaff and jest from our common life, or pretend to be old while still we are young! God forbid that weshould be prim and Puritan when the sun shines and life calls! Thereare no sillier things in life than the mere affectations ofintellectuality. Mere solemnity is both an ugly and a futile thing, andnothing is duller than a constant enforced earnestness. I remember adear old celibate professor of mine who, having met a number ofself-consciously intellectual women, became so annoyed that at lastwhen asked whether he did not rejoice in the higher education of womenhe broke out with the sentence, "No! I don't like clever women--I likesilly girls. " The story may be apocryphal. The man at least was humanenough to have said it. All that I am pleading for is that men andwomen should cease to hide from one another the deeper interests andconcerns that really are present in their lives--that they should notmerely play together but should also think together. 

As to the detailed manners and customs which should control comradeshipI claim no authority to speak dogmatically, and, as I have said, I amsure the rising generation will have to settle these things for itself. I am at least sure that both the stately coldness of Lady Vere de Vereand the familiarity in which dignity is forgotten are fatal. I confessto the hope that the linking of arms and the slapping of one another onthe shoulder are not going to be characteristics of social intercoursein the future. And as to kissing I confess myself unblushinglyconservative--Victorian if you will. Nine times out of ten it may notbe a thing worth making any fuss about. But it is a mistake. Partly, toput it bluntly, because kissing sometimes arouses desires which kissingcannot satisfy; and partly because it is, I believe, a fine instinctwhich suggests to both men and women that they should keep their kissesfor the one person who will or may some day have love's right to them. 

And here I think I ought to put down for the sake of girls a fact ofwhich they are often ignorant. When you allow men to embrace and kissyou--even when you allow them lesser familiarities--you may go your waythinking no more about it and undisturbed. The whole thing may notreally have stirred you. But with men it is not so. Often by suchthings tumults are raised in them whereby the way of self-control andchastity is made cruelly difficult. Only some of you do it, and youhave done it generally in ignorance. When you realize the truth youwill see that it is unkind--possibly you may even realize that it isdangerous. And yet I do not want to overstate even this point. I heardlately of a girl who, having been told the truth, became so nervousthat she was afraid to sit within five feet of a man and found generalsocial intercourse spoilt for her. There are no dangers for men, but onthe contrary there is very great help for men, in the society of girlswho will meet them in a spontaneous, natural, and friendly way. It iswhen the girls who should be their natural companions are found to beprudish and stiff that men are all too apt to look for other girls whowill at least be friendly and often much more than friendly. All that Iwant girls to know is that there are dangers on the horizon of thispart of life, and to ask them to use their wisdom and their commonsense. What I ask of men is that they should cease meanly trying toavoid responsibility in this connection, and should face their half ofthe problem. For the problem _is_ worth solving. Happy, free, wholesomecompanionship between men and women is a bracing and splendid thing. Wecannot possibly solve the whole problem of human life till we haveattained to it. 

And now a last word to the people to whom at the beginning I offered anapology--to the exceptional young people who take no interest in theother sex. I do not commend your attitude. It is not wise. If it is inyour case instinctive and spontaneous you need not worry, for naturewill soon cure it. But if you have consciously adopted it, or aredeliberately retaining it, you are making a serious mistake. You arenot sexless beings, and by adopting this attitude you are repressingcertain parts of your natures which will one day make their presencefelt whether you like it or no, and possibly in unhappy and unnaturalways. Girl friendships cannot fully and finally satisfy any girl. Companionships with other men are insufficient for any man. Instinctsin your beings which may not be denied demand something else. 

If you have decided that there is nothing worth while in thefellowships that may exist between men and women, surely it is plainthat you must be wrong, for the verdict of nine-tenths of mankind isagainst you. If you have in you any positive antagonism to the othersex, that is in itself a manifestation of your sexual nature, and a badone. 

There is a fine, breezy, sunny world full of beauty, interest, and deepsatisfaction for our humanity, the doors of which you are closing onyourselves. If some people have traveled there unwisely or have losttheir way in it, that is only a coward's reason for staying outside. Things may seem to be going very well with you in spite of yourattitude while you are still in the early twenties--you may say thatyou are getting from life all that you want. But as you approach thethirties you will infallibly discover your mistake. Nature will thenassert herself. A certain mysterious loneliness will overtake you, andlife will lose its flavor. In all modern life there is no harderproblem than the one which arises for those who without any will oftheir own have to face that situation. To court it is mere folly. As amatter of fact behind your attitude there lies concealed the attempt todeny your sex, and that is the one impossible thing to do. You maycontrol it, discipline it, or sublimate it; but you will do nothing butmake trouble for yourself till you have accepted it. If it annoys youto find that you are not sufficient in yourself for yourself--if inparticular you resent the mere suggestion that the other sex should inany way be necessary to your completeness and happiness, you are reallyquarrelling with the established nature of things. You may do that ifyou like, but there is always only one end to the quarrel. It is we whoget broken, not the eternal order. 

CHAPTER III

LOVE

The crowning fact about sex is that it makes possible the experience ofbeing in love. I am sure that all possibility of a right handling ofsex problems depends upon a true understanding and valuation of love--that beautiful and imperious emotion which masters and transforms bothmen and women, which is closely linked with the creative instinct, andwhich at a certain stage in its growth calls into being the whole groupof tumultuous sensations and demands known as passion that it mayachieve its own fulfillment. If we know the truth about this matter weshall with comparative ease answer most of the questions which arise inconnection with sex. 

By what divine and mysterious instinct it is that love is awakened I donot know. A man may know and appreciate a score of women, and yetremain in the depths of him essentially unmoved; and then some onewoman with no conscious purpose will release some secret spring of lifein the depths of his personality, whereby she becomes for him henceforth the center of the world. It may happen that this love comes onthe heels of knowledge and grows out of friendship. I believe they arefortunate persons to whom things happen in this way. But it may also bethat the mysterious instinct will do its work at a first meeting. Loveat first sight may be quite incomprehensible and unreasonable, but itis a fact none the less. One meeting may fix the destiny of a man or awoman, even though the second may not occur for months or even years. 

The days that immediately follow this experience may not be happy days. Many a man has to serve and wait ere he can awaken love in her who isto him the one woman in the world. Many a woman has to wait and wonderand face distress. Then, too, till the stage of mutual acknowledgmentis reached love makes men and women awkward. They do uncouth, crude, and clumsy things. They get into muddles. They make mistakes. It wouldseem that some delicate process of mutual adjustment is often necessarybefore two souls can really find each other, and while the stumblingpreliminary days last, love is often a torture as well as a delight. Nor are the best lovers the most successful at first. A superficialemotion may be easily handled, but a deep one will upset a man and makehim strange to himself. And so two people will maneuver and wander andbaffle each other. They will often be sure and then uncertain by turns, and will wonder whether love does not chiefly mean hopelesscomplications. 

But when two souls do really discover each other, then at once a newlife begins, so radiant, beautiful, stimulating, and mysterious, thateven the poets have failed to find sufficient words for it. In theirhearts two lovers always know that this is what they were made for--that this is the very core and essence of human existence. I think theygenerally know that they have been ushered into a house of life ofwhich they are quite unworthy, and that they take their first stepstherein in reverence and in awe. 

Let me simply enumerate some of the manifest consequences of this love. 

1. From the very first love expresses itself as a reaching afterintimacy. For many days two lovers are busy telling each other allabout themselves, about their past experiences, their hopes andaspirations, their doubts and fears, their relations to other people, and their various circumstances. They want to know and be known. Theywant to share everything. Towards mere friends we do well to practicesome reserve. By talking about ourselves we may be apt to bore them. But lovers want to know everything, and are wise if they have noreserves. 

2. Then, secondly, love obviously increases the vitality and so adds tothe physical beauty of both men and women. Indeed it increases vigor ofall kinds, producing new powers of sheer physical and nervousendurance. What will a man who is truly in love not do for love's sake, and that without thinking of fatigue! What untold things women haveaccomplished under the spur of the same inspiration. 

3. Thirdly, it awakens the latent idealism of both, It is not byaccident that men in love are found trying to write poetry, though itmay be a bad accident if other people have to try to read it. Of coursewe laugh at this naïve habit, because poetry seems a thing incongruouswith the ordinary prosaic man, with his baggy trousers and clumsy ways. But for my part I rather incline to thank God that such an impulseshould ever disturb the average man. What could be better than that atone stage of his life at least he should try to reach the stars. And iffrom the works of real poets we were to banish all the love-inspiredpoetry, how paltry would the remainder seem. 

4. Still further, love awakens the soul. Our spiritual capacities sharein the general stimulus which it brings. It is not by chance thatcourting couples go to church. They do _not_ go simply to whisper inthe gallery, and if they do hold hands during the sermon I do not thinkthat God is ill pleased. They go because the inspiration of loveinclines them to long after God. Of course it does. All love is of God, and this special kind bears openly upon it the marks of its divineorigin. And while on the one hand it is true that love leads towardsreligion, it is equally true that without a sense of things spirituallove cannot be its perfect self. Perhaps the commonest cause of thefailure of love lies in some arrest of spiritual development. For whenthe soul is asleep, what is left of love is a poor thing. 

5. And then, fifthly, at some point in its growth love summons passioninto life. What has been hitherto an emotion of the heart becomes alsoa tumultuous activity of the whole being, and love having mastered thewhole incarnate nature of each in turn drives the two together in thatoneness of the flesh which is the decree of God. No doubt it is justhere that the compulsions of civilized society set a serious problemfor ardent lovers. Primitive men probably knew nothing of a period ofengagement, and lovers would proceed to become wholly wedded just assoon as nature laid her compelling hand upon them. But it is our glorythat we are not simply the tools of natural forces. We belong to thedirectorate in this life, and even on the force of love we can imposetimes and seasons. But when the right time does come, then lovers whohave already been attaining to union of heart and mind express theirpassion also in the union of their bodies, and this wonderfulexperience, when it does so enter life, is realized as somethingsacramental. It is literally and exactly an expression in the terms ofthe body of something which is already a spiritual fact. Nothingsatisfies real love except this complete mingling of two personalities. It is not satisfied without physical intimacy, and yet physicalintimacy alone is not enough. That which is satisfied by mere physicalintimacy is not love. The full human passion which alone deserves thatname calls also for intimacies of mind and spirit--for the interplay oftwo personalities through the whole stretch of their powers. But itcannot be too strongly said that on the terms I have indicated theultimate bodily union of two lovers is a beautiful and happy thing. Itis felt to be something with large spiritual consequences. In somemysterious way it really does bind souls together. Each knows thathenceforth he or she is bound to the other for life, and a man isusually moved by a glowing sense of reverent gratitude to the woman whohas thus trod with him the strange paths of that new country. Considered apart from love, such an experience may seem to be gross, because apart from love it is gross. But as an incident in thecommunion of two loyal hearts it is realized as a pure and naturalthing. Through it the flesh is caught up into harmony with the spiritand is thereby redeemed. A certain new balance and repose of being isattained whereby a whole personality will experience a wonderful senseof liberation. [Footnote: I do not think the creative instinct oftenenters into consciousness at this point. It does so with some women, but with very few men. As a rule the real content of the experience isjust an ardent desire in each for utter nearness to the other. It isthe expression of their love that they desire. It is each other thatthey love--not as yet any third person. ]

6. And then, sixthly, from love that has thus run its natural andordained course a new life results. Even human love has creative value, and by it the doors are opened into that most sacred world in which aman and a woman succumb together to the power and beauty of an infant, thrill together over its untold charms, and find that little hands areclutching at their hearts with amazing and mystic power. And not untilthat point is reached is love made perfect. Mere lover's love is aselfish thing. I do not say it in criticism, for I believe lovers havean inalienable right to live for a while simply for each other. Butfrom the point when they bend together over a baby's cradle they take astep up in life, and their love becomes a call to service, whereby itsselfishness is purged away. Parentage is usually thought of assupremely the crown of a woman's life. So it is, though it is not itsonly possible crown. But I believe that it is equally the crown of aman's life. It is perhaps true that the production of true fathersbelongs to a later stage of human evolution than the production ofmothers, for fathers are not so obviously essential to young children. But I hazard the suggestion that one of the prime needs of the stage atwhich we have now arrived is just that men should learn the arts andpowers of fatherhood, and take a larger part in the rearing ofchildren. And I believe men will find, as I have said, that parentageis for them also the crown of life. With many men the emotions thatcome with fatherhood are the deepest of which they are capable, andthey are also the finest. Even men who seem to me pretty low in thescale of humanity often recover some of their lost manhood when underthe power of their own little children. And with normal men theirfatherhood comes to dominate life. 

Its most obvious result is that it compels a man to work, and to workhard. We are mostly born slackers. We should like to take manyholidays, and if we were left alone we would do it. But parentage bindsus to the wheel. We discover that we have got to face the grind, because the plain alternative is that the bairns would starve. And sowe do it. Of course at times we rebel. You may hear men every now andthen complaining half cynically and half humorously that, having oncebeen indiscreet enough to fall in love, they were thenceforth sweptalong by rapids till at last they found themselves involved in all theparaphernalia of family life from perambulators to doctor's bills. Butthere are few men who do not know in their hearts that the toils havebeen the making of them. If love led only to delights, it would ruinus. It is because it leads also to heavy labor that it makes us. It isbecause I see this so clearly that I am not so much distressed as somepeople are over the fact that motherhood also means very hard work. [Footnote: No doubt in our disordered social life it often means fartoo much work. No doubt thousands of mothers are simply crushed by it. But it is not a good thing when mothers can evade even reasonably hardwork. ] The great discoveries of the moral and spiritual worlds are onlymade in and through work--yes, and sometimes through work that is sheergrind. There is no other road to moral or spiritual maturity either forman or woman. I have this deeply rooted objection to inherited wealth--that it makes possible an escape from this redeeming discipline, and byremoving one of the normal consequences of love often leads to thespoiling of love. 

Let us, however, be clear about this further fact--love does not merelylead to enforced labor, it also redeems that labor. Not merely does aman face up to his job because it is in a sense done for love's sake, but love itself supplies the necessary respite and counterbalance tothe burden of toil. We all need recreations. The tightly drawn stringmust be relaxed. Moods come when normal and quite Christian men say, "Oh, I can't stick it any longer; I want to enjoy myself. " We naturallydemand that there should be an element of delight somewhere in life. Notoriously it is rather hard to come by. City crowds at night presentthe spectacle of people making huge and fevered efforts to run delightto earth and often achieving only pitiful failure. I believe the normalway in which delight ought to enter the lives of married people is justthrough their satisfaction in each other's society, enriched by thesociety of their children. When a man and a woman have made the rightsort of home they escape finally from all fevered cravings afterpicture-houses and ball-rooms. There lies to hand for them that whichwill day after day refresh and delight them, and make them ready forto-morrow's toil. 

I am not forgetting that at this point modern voices will want to breakin on me with appropriate quotations from Bernard Shaw and others, andtry to silence me by pointing out what a mean, petty, dull, sickly, andstodgy thing mere domesticity can be. Yes! it can be all that forpeople who let it be all that. Even love that once was passionatecannot redeem the life of two people unless there is something there toredeem. Two lifeless and stupid people living together _can_ make oflife something duller than either could make alone. If it be part ofgeneral wisdom to try to live widely and fully, and to use as much ofour natures as is possible, that is surely as true for two peopletogether as it could be for them apart. And to make a marriage into agreat thing both parties to it must work to make it wide in itshorizons and worthy because of the multitude of its interests. No sanepersons imagine that mere marriage excuses people from the necessityfor handling this big, mysterious, and difficult thing which we callhuman life with vigilance and determination. But life on any terms forthe great majority of people must have monotonous and trying periods init. It almost always has heavy sorrows and not a few bitterdisappointments. And it is in view of these things that married love isfound to have redeeming power. It is one of the lies of the cynic thatlove must needs burn itself out somewhere about the forties. Thousandsof people have found at forty that the best was yet to be. For the factis that all through the afternoon of life and even when the shadowslengthen towards the end love will still send beams of beauty andromance into daily life, and remaining still passionate will put goldencontent into the passing hours. 

It is life stories of this sort which alone reveal the meaning andpurpose of God in making the sex interest so almighty and central inlife. We do not understand love till we have thus looked on towardsthe end. When it is allowed to run its true course it does in this wayredeem life. 

If I am told that I have drawn a hopelessly idealized picture ofmarried love, I can only reply by a blunt denial. Twenty-five years ofintimate contact with ordinary people have taught me these things. Thekind of life I have pictured is going on in uncounted small and unknownhomes all over the country. It is going on with commonplace people whoare neither very interesting nor very clever, but who are wise enoughto be simple and human. The real wonder of love is just that it canlift two commonplace people into a life that is not commonplace. Andthat is just how most of us get our chance in life. The people who aregoing through these experiences are for the most part quiet people. Wedo not hear about them. They do not have novels written about them, andthey supply no copy for the society newspapers. It is the other peoplewho advertise their woes. It is the unhappily married who make a noise. Only the very greatest novelists can make a good novel out of the storyof a successful marriage. But apparently almost anyone can producestories that people will read if only he or she puts in enough highlycolored material about the aberrations of lovers and the possible waysin which marriage can be wrecked. It is sheer untruth to say that mostmarriages are failures. In most indeed there are ups and downs. Themost affectionate couples make mistakes and quarrel over trifles. Lovedoes not make all tempers smooth in a hurry. But love does teach peoplehow to get past such troubles. It does bring balance and repose intolife for both husband and wife. It does tend to produce efficiency andhealth in those who handle it truly. It does make for normal and happydevelopment. 

It is only with this background of positive truth about normal lovethat I can approach the other questions which must be dealt with inthis book. If we are going to inquire as to the sanctions of thereceived moral standards, and the reasons which make the moral struggleworth while--if we are going to find the truth about the way in whichto conduct married life, and find any light on the question of birthcontrol, it can only be in relation to the positive truth about loveand its manifold reactions on human beings. We shall never learn tomanage the emotions and desires which arise from our sexual naturesuntil we have first understood what it is that nature is trying toachieve through these means. To a number of these further questions Ishall pass on in the succeeding chapters. 

I hope I may do so now on the assumption that anything is worth whileif only we can conserve for ourselves the possibility of such a careerof experience as I have outlined, and that whatever spoils suchexperience beforehand, or renders it impossible, is really an enemyboth to our well-being and our happiness. If

 "Life, with all it yields of joy and woe And hope and fear. .. Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love How love might be, hath been indeed and is, "

then the key to all morality and all sound practical wisdom is just toconserve at all costs our chance of knowing love--love pure, passionate, fruitful, and holy. 

_Unreturned Love_

I ask myself whether I can say anything of use to those who love deeplyand truly, but find their love unreturned. Many who read these pagesmay say to themselves that they can fully believe that mutual love isthe way into a wonderful country of new and full life, but that forthem love has meant only a great longing and a great pain. They couldgive generously and nobly. They have in them a great wealth of lovewhich they long to spend lavishly; but because he or she remainsindifferent they find themselves tormented by that which is best inthem. There is something here harder to face than even the sorrow ofwidows or widowers. To have loved and lost might be said to be atolerable situation compared with the feeling that one's love has notbeen wanted. 

Those who have never known such a situation may speak lightly of it. Those who have will always want to deal gently and reverently with it. Plainly it has great dangers attached to it. It is easy for those whoare facing it to allow themselves to become bitter and cynical. It mustbe hard for them not to feel that many who do enjoy the privilege ofmutual love are shamefully ungrateful. And it must be harder still toescape pangs of jealousy at times when they see the light of joy inthe eyes of lovers, or the pangs of something finer than jealousy whenthey feel the charm of little children. 

I know of only one perfect resource for men or women in this situation. It lies in God. Other people always seem dull and uninteresting tothose who want supremely one special person. But God is notuninteresting. He has to be sought. He is not found by the careless orthe cowardly. But those who seek Him earnestly do find Him, and asa sense of His love and His reality steals into the heart healingbegins at once. He restores the soul. He fills the hungry. He issufficient. And when that has happened other people begin to seemlovable too, and the human love that seemed at one point not to beneeded finds numbers of objects. No one who can love is an unimportantperson in a world that is starving for more love of divine quality. 

And this at least I can report for those whom it may interest--that Ihave known some very strong and gentle men, and some very brave, gracious and understanding women whose lives are very rich in blessingto other people, who know how to help the weak and comfort the sad, andin whose faces there shines the light of a great and patient faith. Having wondered for a time whence came these great endowments, I havelearnt at last that they were prizes won in a great contest whereinhaving had to face the trial of love unreturned they learnt at last toaccept their own sorrow without anger, and then to use their power oflove in self-forgetfulness for other troubled souls. 

Yes, there is that to be said--to be said with great respect andtenderness because love unreturned involves a very fiery trial--but tobe said with conviction because it is most blessedly true. 

CHAPTER IV

FALLING IN LOVE AND GETTING ENGAGED

This will be a very short chapter, for there is only one thing which Ifeel moved to say on this subject, and yet it is so important that Iput it in a chapter by itself. Put in a sentence it is this: Only reallove offers a basis for a happy marriage, and real love is somethingmore than physical attraction. If all young men and women knew that andwould be strong enough to act upon it, there would be very fewcalamitous marriages in the future. 

But let us face the facts. Mere physical attraction can be tremendouslystrong. It springs into existence sometimes between two people whohardly know each other. The explanation of it must lie in mysteriousfacts about our incarnate life which I certainly cannot analyze. Onceit is there it is felt as an imperious summons to marriage. To eachthe other seems for the time being a wonderful person, to be desiredbeyond all others. Often the critical faculty in us is entirelysuspended by this attraction; and "her" words seem wise, though in factthey are silly, and "he" seems noble, though in fact he is only anaveragely decent man. Two such persons long ardently to be together, though they do not nearly always want to talk to each other. They areheld by something they do not understand, but which moves themprofoundly. 

Now by some mysterious and kindly providence I believe it usuallyhappens that this mutual attraction declares itself between two peoplewho as they do get to know each other find that they are also attractedmentally and spiritually. Usually from this beginning a real fellowshipbetween the two persons will grow up which involves nearly their wholepersonalities. Many people who fell in love at first sight have madesplendid marriages. But it does not always happen so. Sometimes thisphysical attraction remains the only bond between two people. Sometimesin the other departments of life they actually fret and annoy oneanother. Sometimes a friendship refuses to grow up. Sometimes evenwhile the attraction still exists contempt lurks behind it. And thatmeans that it is entirely unsafe to get engaged on the basis of a merephysical attraction. There is really something impersonal about merephysical attraction. The individual as such is hardly an active agentin it. He or she is the victim of some great life force that seems towant to throw men and women together regardless of their mental andspiritual qualities. Behind a mutual physical attraction there must besome strange harmony between the two physical natures concerned. Butthat may be the whole truth of the situation. And to become engaged ormarried on that basis alone is just another instance of acting as if wewere merely bodies, when we are not. It constitutes another attempt toforget mind, heart, and soul, and is therefore disastrous. 

And that, of course, means that a man and a woman, if they want to findtheir true life, must take care to get to know each other _before_ theycommit themselves, even though they are attracted. "Maggie" in _WhatEvery Woman Knows_ showed herself extraordinarily astute when shepacked off her husband, who was the victim of an intense physicalattraction for another woman, into a lonely place in the country wherehe would have to spend all day and every day with the lady whom he heldto be his heart's delight. The result was that in four or five days hewas bored almost beyond endurance. He had an acute mind and a verydefinite type of character, and no happy life was possible for himmerely on the basis of a physical passion. 

Therefore it is not enough that merely to look at "her" makes yourblood run fast and your nerves tingle. It is not enough that the verysight of "him" should give you acute pleasure. Before a man and a womanget engaged they would do well to have some long talks together, and soto find out what their real interests are, and whether their generalviews and purposes in life are such as can possibly be harmonized. Marriage lasts for a long time, and is a poor affair when a husband isbored by his wife's conversation, or when a wife is repelled by herhusband's views. Even to such there may come recurrent hours of ardentlove, but both will want more than that. We must take our whole selvesinto marriage, and to have experienced a mere physical attraction is noproof that we shall be able to do it. I remember one very distressedyoung wife who once asked me for help. She had been carried away by theattraction of a masterful man, and had lived through her engagement andthe early days of marriage in a whirl of excitement in which she neverstopped to consider what sort of a man he truly was. A month or twoafter marriage she inevitably began to find out, and was both shockedand repelled. She was longing to have a friend in her husband; but theyboth felt that a friendship between them was impossible. 

I am sure it must mean one of the hardest tasks which life ever setsany of us to keep one's head when under the influence of such anattraction, and perhaps to have to decide not to act at all inconsequence of it. To stifle an incipient passion in that way may be aterrific business for some people. But we are queer complex creatures, and we needs must take account of the whole of ourselves if we are tofind life. 

I repeat, physical attraction _is_ often the beginning of everythingelse. But it is not always so, and for that reason we must needsbeware. 

Of course the converse of all this is also true. A man and a woman mayattain to a fine fellowship of mind and find co-operation in many wayscongenial, and yet may experience no mutual physical attraction. And ifthey begin to think of marriage they have indeed a delicate problembefore them. Generally, I believe, the further intimacies which comewith marriage will awaken physical instinct in both, and when naturehas had her way with them a really complete marriage will be attained. But it is not always so. Neither may have the power fully to awaken theother. In some marriages that are fine friendships either the man orthe woman is half-conscious of deep-seated longings that have neverbeen satisfied. And if by chance a third person appears with the powerfully to awaken the physical nature of either the husband or the wife, a very difficult situation arises. I do not say it is a situation whichcannot be handled successfully. I do not believe we need be the victimsof passion. But only a fool would deliberately court the possibility ofhaving to face the situation I have described. Wherefore I say again weneed to take account of the whole of ourselves if we are to find life. 

CHAPTER V

OUR MORAL STANDARDS

There are at least three moral standards in existence in the Englishworld. There is first the Christian standard, for which men and womenare equal, which recognizes the sacredness of personality in everycase, and which calls for absolute continence and chastity beforemarriage and absolute fidelity after it. This is the standard I amconcerned to understand and defend. 

There is, secondly, the legal standard, for which men and women havenot equal rights, but which, in the marriage and divorce laws, accordsto woman an inferior position--which takes no cognizance of immoralitybetween unmarried persons unless children result and which, in Englandas distinguished from Scotland, attaches no penalties to infidelity onthe part of a husband. 

And then, thirdly, there is the working moral standard of society. Icannot describe it because it differs so greatly in different sectionsof society. In general it has to be said that it treats lack ofchastity among unmarried men as a very venial offence and punishes thesame offence in women with very severe social penalties; and it maycertainly be said that it has not yet demanded a full recognition bythe law of the equality of the sexes in the matter of moral and marriedrights. 

Now the question of the relation of our legal standards to theChristian standard is an exceedingly difficult and yet vitallyimportant one. The hope of enforcing the Christian standard by law hastempted many minds. In our own day many try to make the law of the landenforce the Christian position about divorce. But there are gravedifficulties in connection with this course. The Christian attitude andspirit cannot be produced by law. The scope of mere law must always bemuch more restricted than the scope of the mind of Christ. TheChristian mind is not primarily concerned with penalties and does notdesire to see penalties attached to the failure to reach the Christianstandard in all things. To attach a criminal stigma to all lapses fromthe Christian way in morals would be disastrous. 

What might be expected from the law of the land is, I think, that itshould recognize the fundamental equality of men and women, and that, while demanding less, it should at least point towards the Christianstandard (see note at end of chapter). 

For the rest, the adjustment of legal enactments to the Christian idealmust always be a matter for delicate and vigilant handling. 

With regard to the working moral standard of society there is just thisto be said, that if the Christian standard be the true one then our aimmust be nothing less than a condition in which public opinion shall inall things endorse the latter. To-day the social standard is lax whenthe Christian one is strict, and cruel when the Christian is generousand forgiving. In saying this I am of course thinking of the _true_Christian standard. There is a conventional Christian standard which ismore cruel and unforgiving than society's standard. But it is reallydefinitely unchristian. Further, society is radically insincere, forgiving what can be kept secret, condoning on account of moralskepticism much general laxity, and yet breaking out into a mock moralindignation before discovered vice. 

We are all in great danger in this connection on account of themysterious force of the herd instinct. We tend to accept what othersthink just because they think it. We live under the power of conventionoften without realizing how insincere and hollow convention may be. Wherefore if we are ever to make progress it becomes nothing less thana duty to scrutinize current standards. They may be less thanChristian, and if we are ever to make progress it can only come throughan honest process of inquiry and revision. 

_The Reasons for the Christian Standard_

To-day the spirit of inquiry and challenge is definitely demanding thereasons for the Christian standard itself. But I have no complaint tooffer on that account. I believe only good can come from it in the end. 

I believe the stored wisdom of the ages is embodied in that Christianstandard, and that the more we know about sex the more clearly dowe perceive that that standard points the way, and the only way, toreal happiness for men and women in social relations, and to theattainment of our highest life. But I freely acknowledge the right ofthe rising generation to demand the reasons for this standard. Ipropose, therefore, to try to state those reasons on the assumptionthat I am addressing honest and sincere minds who only want to know thetruth. I can only work out the answer bit by bit. 

To begin with, "Why is self-abuse wrong?" It comes under the head ofincontinence, which the Bible and all serious moral teachers so firmlycondemn. But why? Doctors are beginning to say that unless it isexcessive it does no particular harm either to the brain or the body. Its victims worry about it--But need they? Here at least the answer iseasily found because it is supplied by those, and by all of those, whoindulge in the practice. I have never met a man who did not despisehimself for it. It invariably leaves a man out of conceit with himself. I have heard men stoutly defending irregular relations with women, butI have never heard this practice defended, even though it isexceedingly common. Robust male sentiment is all against it. And thereason is that, because it is an attempt to satisfy sexual craving inan abnormal way, it always leaves psychic disturbance behind it. It mayrelieve a physical tension, but it does nothing to satisfy the wholeman. It leaves a bad taste in the mind. Both mind and spirit as well asthe body enter into true sexual experience. They have no place in this, and by reason of it the inner harmonies of a man's nature areinevitably jangled. 

I have noticed, too, a further and very serious consequence of thishabit. It plants deep in many men's minds, and especially in the mindsof sensitive and intellectual men, an abhorrence for the sexual side ofthemselves. Just because they have never achieved freedom from them, they hate and despise the passions that overcome them. This often leadsto very serious consequences when love enters into their lives. Theywant then to dissociate love from all its physical concomitants. Theyregard all things sexual as impure. It may even come to them as a shockto find out that the women they love are capable of passion, and theyresent any bodily effects of their own love. And this may almost spellcalamity unless psychological adjustment is achieved in time. For truemarriage _must_ involve a clean and happy acceptance of the sexualfacts. A man must bring a clean mind to the whole of his common lifewith the woman he loves, and self-abuse is ultimately a serious eviljust because it defiles the mind. 

Then, secondly, why are wild oats evil things to sow? Why should we notendorse the shrug of the shoulders with which society treats them? Inotice that even women lightly forgive them, and I believe they make amistake. Forgiveness is indeed always a divine operation, but lightforgiveness implies that nothing serious has happened. What then is soserious about licentiousness?

I must of necessity discriminate at this point. By wildness men oftenmean occasional intimacies into which they do not pretend to be led bylove. About such experiences I suppose men would say that they amountmerely to the satisfaction of a physical appetite, and that after theyare over a man may go his way as little affected as is a man who hassatisfied his thirst. 

But that is not the truth about them. The man in such cases suffersdamage. He suffers it because he has attempted an impossibility. Hehas tried to separate the various parts of his being, and to satisfyhis animal nature without any consideration for his mind and heart. Butsexual experience itself proves that that cannot be done. The sexualinstinct is intimately related to our whole beings, but especially toour affections. At the moment of sexual intimacy a man at leastpretends for the moment that he loves, and when he offers that pretenceto someone whom in reality he despises and means to leave in an hour, he does violence to his whole nature. The soul of him insists all thetime that this is a low business. His outraged mind and heart protestand produce an evil after-taste. No man likes to remember such events. The best of him could not enter into them. He is left jangled andupset. All that makes such doings seem right at any time is thatwhen it has reached a certain degree of intensity passion seems tojustify its own demands. That is the age-long illusion whereby evildeceives and betrays us. But till we have learnt to repudiatethat suggestion we are not even on the way to succeed in this part oflife. Often the men who defend such indulgences admit that they aregross, and then fall back upon the contention that a man _must_ begross at times--that his nature demands it. It is a fairly seriousslander to offer to our sex. Fortunately there exist thousands ofincarnate proofs that it is _only_ a slander. We all know that hissexual nature sets the ordinary healthy man a very serious problem, andabout that I have tried to speak with sympathy and charity in a laterchapter. But the assertion that a man _must_ be gross is hardto hear with patience. It is one of the lies that savor of cowardice. 

By "wildness, " however, men sometimes mean temporary intimate relationsbetween men and women to which they _are_ led by love, and suchrelationships are at least very different in moral quality from thegross ones I have spoken of. 

Why must they be condemned? My whole contention is that love and lovealone makes physical intimacy pure and right. Why then cannot lovesanctify passionate relationships outside marriage? Why should theunion of true lovers be held to be impure before marriage and pureafter it?

Let me answer the last query first. I do not think the union of truelovers apart from marriage is impure. I believe that such lovers make avery serious mistake--a mistake that may turn out to have been cruel. Ibelieve that society is utterly right in condemning such unions, andthat those who really understand will always refuse to enter on them. But impure is not the word to apply to them. They are clean andbeautiful compared to the bodily intimacies of those who marry withoutlove. And yet I do not think that even emotionally they can ever beperfect. Sexual intimacy is not the perfect and sacramental thing whichit is meant to be unless both parties come to it with free anduntroubled minds, feeling that what they do is a right and happy thing. But in the unions of unmarried persons there generally lurks somehalf-hidden sense of shame. Some part of the being of one or the otherreally endorses society's standards, and even love cannot dispel theshadows thus created. 

And yet still that does not meet the challenge to show the _reason_ forsociety's standard. The reasons are really many. In the first place, ifunmarried lovers take steps to prevent their intimacy from having itsdue fruit in a child, they are robbing their experience of its finespontaneity, and introducing an element of calculation and caution intowhat should be a thing unbound. While, on the other hand, if they donot prevent the coming of a child they are, in the present state ofsociety, doing a definite and cruel wrong to their own offspring. Tolove a child dearly and to know that by your own act you havehandicapped it in life from the first must be a bitter experienceindeed. I am well aware that law in regard to illegitimate children isunchristian. Even more is the attitude of society to them unchristian. But so long as things remain as they are, the parents of anillegitimate child do it a wrong. Further, even though law and customshould alter, it would still be true that a child without both its ownparents is seriously handicapped in life. Which leads on to my nextpoint; for, secondly, if two lovers really love, they want to givetheir whole selves to one another, including their whole futures. Noman truly and loyally loves a woman who wants to keep open a loopholeof escape from her. It would be well if women would always apply thistest to the passionate protestations of men. Real love is lovewithout reserve. True sexual intimacy in itself means taking each otherfor better or for worse, and when lovers unite themselves though stillunwilling for such permanent unions, their love is not perfect. Theyare not really united by love. They are letting mere present desirecarry them away. I hear of many men, and even of some women, who askwhy they should not have many lovers if they have many friends. Theanswer is that no man gives his whole self to a friend, but that love, when it is real, does mean the giving of your whole self. And that, plainly, a man can only do to one woman and a woman to one man. 

It is generally in defense of temporary unions that people question thenecessity for marriage vows. But temporary unions cannot be endedhappily. If they were entered on without love, they are gross things, as I have already said; and if they were the creation of real love, there is no happy way out of them. The two have been too close to oneanother to part without tearing apart--leaving ragged and it may bebleeding edges on their personalities. Then again, as I have tried toshow already, love is only made perfect when it is allowed to issue inresponsibilities and labors. Divorced from them it is a selfish thing. There is a wild and lawless element in passion, which is part of itsglory. But that glory is only sweetened and justified for those who lettheir passion carry them through the whole career of experience towhich it summons them. 

All this may be accepted as establishing a case for permanent unions asthe only legitimate things, but inasmuch as it claims that the demandfor permanence lies in the very heart of love itself it may still beasked with some urgency, "Why introduce a marriage ceremony with publicvows?" And here I must follow a somewhat different line of thoughtwhich may at first sight seem contradictory. In spite of all that Ihave said, I believe that even ardent lovers are all the better forbeing bound, because of the wayward element of inconstancy in humannature. Thousands of married persons have never once been conscious oftheir vows. They have never come near thinking, "We must hold togetherbecause we promised, " or "We must make the best of things because weare tied together. " Thousands have never for a moment wanted to changetheir condition. But with others it is not so. No men or women arealways at their best. Though they may have had moments on the heightswhen they gladly took each other for better or for worse, there willcome other moods when the finer notes of love will not sound in theirears. There will come to all but a few couples hours when they will beirritated and annoyed with one another. And if they were free to do so, they might fling away from each other and so miss after all the bestthat was to be. For the best is not to be found in those early dayswhen passion flames and dominates, but rather in those later days whentwo personalities have at last become really fitted to each other andwhen the daily round of labor is illumined by the lamp of love. Andtherefore, being what we are, it is a good thing for our own sakes thatwe should be bound. 

Even though the bonds should actually mean pain, it is still good thatthey should be allowed to bind, though it be only for the sake of thechildren. Passionate lovers do not think of children, but society mustneeds put their claims before all others. Probably the historicalreason why society came to insist on monogamy and to condemn allirregular unions lay in the fact that it is the inalienable right of achild to be brought up by a father and a mother, and that no societycan be strong and finely ordered unless its foundations are laid infamily life, wherein men and women co-operate to give the risinggeneration every possible chance. 

I assume that I am addressing honest minds that wish to handle theissues of life sincerely and wisely, and to them I am sure it must beworth pointing out that it can never be right for individuals to ordertheir lives on principles which could not be given a universalapplication. I can well understand a passionate couple being quitesure that they will hold to one another throughout life, though they bein no way legally tied. I can imagine that many such couples wouldresent as a profanity the mere suggestion that they could ever want topart. But imagine what society would become if legal ties wereabolished. You and your man or woman may be quite sure that you wouldnever part, but you know that thousands would. Couples would set out onthe joint life with little thought, and allow the first painfulmisunderstanding to part them. Many men would shake off theirobligations almost as soon as they found they were becoming heavy. Bothmen and women would pass from one temporary union to another, mutilating their better natures in the process. Thousands of womenwould be left in helpless loneliness. Tens of thousands of childrenwould go uncared for and neglected. The picture becomes more horriblethe more carefully you look into its details. And as you look you beginto see the real value of our moral standard. It is not an instance ofthe fussiness of Mrs. Grundy. It is not an instance of slave moralityimposed upon free people. It is not one of the arbitrary dicta of atyrannical Church. It is rather the embodiment of the wisdom learntthrough ages of varied and often tragic experience. It is an attempt toconserve for each rising generation the possibility of the best in thefield of sexual experience. It does point out the way of happy, healthy, and complete life. 

I have left to the end a thought about the marriage ceremony which willonly appeal to some, but which I feel ought to have a place in thischapter. Many fine and sensitive lovers shrink from the publicity ofordinary weddings. Their love is to them so sacred and so personal athing that they do not want to make any parade of themselves before agreat gathering of relations and friends. Well! I know of no bindingreason why such sensitive couples should call in the relationsand friends. Those relations and friends like to rejoice with those whorejoice, because of a very human and kindly interest. And many couples, and especially many brides, greatly enjoy their friends on theirmarriage day. If, however, a couple prefer a private wedding that istheir affair. But about the place and value of a religious ceremonyI do want to add a word. If a man and a woman realize that their loveis a sacred thing, I believe they will find they actually want to makethe great step into final intimacy in the presence of God, and to stopfor a moment ere they go up into that mysterious country to ask Hisblessing and guidance. I have said that at a certain point love itselfdemands intimacy, and that it is an entirely natural thing for us todesire it. But none the less it _is_ a momentous hour in the life ofany couple when they pass behind the last barriers and enter on asacramental oneness of body. It is a wonderful hour--the hour of allothers when the romance of life is most splendid. But just becauseit is that, and because the issues of that hour are so far-reaching, what could be more seemly than that they should pause for a moment onthe threshold and ask the Giver of all love to bless and guide them!To kneel first together before Him, and then to pass on--to acknowledgeHis goodness as the author of love, and then to go up on to love's highplaces, what could be more just to the real facts! I know not with whatsolemnities those who do _not_ believe in God are going to dignify thathour in life, but to all young men and women who _do_ believe in God, Iwould like to say with all possible urgency: Be sure you do not takethat great step until you can ask God's blessing on the taking of it. Be sure you pause a while to be quiet before Him ere you allow yourlove to have its final sway over you. 

NOTE. --It will be said at once at this point by some, "That means thelaw is wrong in allowing the remarriage of divorced persons, because inthat case there is a definite contradiction between the legal and theChristian standards. "

I have deliberately excluded a discussion of the problem of divorcefrom this book because I am concerned with the unalterable truths aboutsex rather than with the social question of how best unhappy situationsarising from sin can be remedied. 

But at this point I must say a word. I conceive the Christian positionto be "Marriage cannot be broken without sin. " And that position thelaw endorses. It requires proof that in fact a marriage has been brokenby sin, before it will sever the legal bonds. 

I cannot, however, believe it to be a Christian interest to maintainthe mock appearance of a marriage when (if ever) all moral content hasdisappeared from it. Christianity calls for an unlimited forgiveness. But when forgiveness and patience have failed and either husband orwife has found another connection or has even ceased to have any vitalrelation to his or her partner in marriage, then I feel that thatmarriage is morally dead. And dead things should be buried if possible. 

There remains the question of remarriage. 

If the law allows this and if Christianity says "There is a higher wayto which God calls you, " I do not think there is here an indefensiblecontradiction. It is a case of a higher and a lower way. 

The law says "I will not compel you to remain unmarried. " Christianitysays "I will not compel you at all, but I call you in love's name. "

That is exactly the situation we must accept in connection with many ofChrist's precepts. Giving alms. Loving enemies. Refusing to judge. Refusing to swear, etc. , etc. These are all clear Christian duties. Butlaw cannot deal with them. All this seems to me quite plain. In commonhonesty, however, I must confess that it is not clear to me that thespirit of Christ does forbid the remarriage of a divorced person in allcases. Christian marriage always has love in it. It is not always therein actual marriage. We must think the whole matter out afresh in termsof love before we can understand the Christian way. Some things theworld calls marriages are not really marriages at all to the Christianmind. 

CHAPTER VI

A MAN'S STRUGGLE

A great many men are secretly ashamed of the very fact that they haveto struggle with temptation in the matter of purity. In an innerchamber of their lives they contend with impure thoughts and impuresuggestions, but they try to keep the doors of that chamber shut, andwould blush if others knew what goes on there. Yet all healthy andnormal men are so tempted. Those who seem to have escaped havegenerally taken the course of repressing the whole sexual side of theirnatures, and of shutting their eyes to the sexual facts of life, whichis not a wise course. And so, firstly, in view of the task of facingtemptation it would be well for us all to realize that temptationitself is not sin. We may expose ourselves to quite unnecessarytemptation. We may play with fire. We may be fools, if we will. Butsome element of temptation is part of our normal lot in life, and weneed not blush about it. To the average young man it can truly be said, "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man. " Inthis respect we are all brothers in arms, and I believe the first steptowards victory lies in an honest facing of the fact. Let us admit thatwe are tempted and get openly to the business of understanding howtemptation can be conquered. 

Let me attempt first of all to clear away certain mischievous delusionsabout the subject. It is actually believed in many quarters, and halfbelieved in many more, that continence is bad for a man. It is only"natural, " men often say, for an adult man to satisfy his desires, andif he does not he suffers in health. It is a point on which we must letthe doctors speak, even although plenty of individual men could testifyfrom experience that the idea is nonsense. And what do the doctors say!Sir Dyce Ductworth, Sir James Paget, Sir Andrew Clark, Sir CliffordAllbutt, and scores of others have all expressed themselves with theclearest emphasis. Sir James Paget, for instance, says, "Chastity orpurity of life does no harm to mind or body. Its discipline isexcellent. Marriage can safely be waited for. " Further, in the noblelittle book on "Sex" by Thomson and Geddes, I find this sentence:"Féré, a leading authority on sex pathology and hygiene, deniescategorically that a man is ever hurt by continence, and affirms thathe is always the stronger. " What probably is true is that if a manlives in thought an impure life, and submits himself to excitingsuggestions and imaginations, the secretions of his body will beincreased, so that he may become subject to very severe strain. Andthat, if continued, may work nervous damage. But this only means that acontinent life requires thought and proper direction. There _need be_no evil effects from continence. We must be quite clear aboutthis point, for so long as we toy in mind with the suggestion thatthere is any natural necessity for incontinence, we are fatallyweakened for our struggle. It is a man's glory to be master of himself, and to maintain his virginity through the years before marriage. And hemay quite well achieve it, if he will but go the right way about it. Nodoubt the struggle is much harder for some than for others. No doubtthere are reasons in plenty for charity to those who fail. But there isno real reason why any man should not hope and expect to succeed, and aright expectation is the very foundation of success. 

Then, secondly, a man would do well to realize one simple physiologicaltruth about his body. That body naturally and regularly secretes semen. But it is not necessary that that semen should be discharged by sexualactivity. On the contrary, a large part of it can be reabsorbed by thebody and used up in mental and physical activities to the great benefitof the body and the enrichment of life. That is why the ancients taughtthat Diana is the natural born enemy of Venus. The man who takes plentyof regular exercise employs his vital forces in a way that lessens thestrain of his moral conflict. And though it is true that thisre-absorption of semen does not completely remove it, Nature has herown method during sleep of readjusting things in a quite harmless way. 

From this it follows of course that the real secret of a successfulstruggle for purity lies in living a life full of wholesome and variedactivities. Our artistic sensibilities are intimately related to oursexual natures, and by some self-expression through art, or by thesympathetic appreciation of the art of others, we provide an enrichingoutlet for our natural energies. Social activities and wholesome socialintercourse, too, are of the very greatest importance. The sedentaryand lonely life is often found quite fatal, and a life in which onlymale companionships are available is very undesirable. Indeed itmay truly be said that the best way of avoiding undesirable relationswith women lies in the cultivation of right and happy relations withthem. I suppose more men have been brought through this difficultperiod owing to the fact that association with women of refined naturesmade the thought of sexual irregularity seem repulsive, than by anyother single force. 

But at all costs let us be sure that we live full lives. I heard latelyof a man who was so constantly assailed by sexual cravings, and soconvinced that in him they were abnormally strong, that he went toconsult a psychotherapist. When he had been fully examined it was foundthat in him sexual cravings were really rather weaker than in theaverage man, but that in the house of his life they had no rivals, so that he imagined them to be almost all-powerful. 

It is when a man allows himself to sit in idleness and indoors that thefumes of lust are apt to rise up and make the windows dim, till in thatstuffy air he lives evilly at least in thought, and is weakened forthe problem of defense. But the man who will get out into the bracingopen air of life will find his noxious fancies blown away and his mindrestored to health. 

Then, thirdly, there are certain fairly obvious points in relation tothe right management of the body about which doctors are agreed. Theyreally amount in general to the suggestion that we should live a simpleand bracing life, and keep brother body in his proper place ofsubjection all round. Keep your body clean, and do not funk your coldbath in the morning. Avoid luxurious foods, and overeating of any sort. Get up when you wake up in the morning, and avoid lying in bed halfawake. Take plenty of fresh air and exercise every day. Andfinally, and at all costs, keep absolutely sober. Probably the last ofthese pieces of advice is by far the most important. It is theunvarnished truth that the vast majority of men who have gone wrong didso for the first time, not when they were drunk, but when liquor hadmade them reckless and forgetful. The plain truth about alcohol is thatit has a twofold effect upon the human constitution. On the one handit heightens desire, and on the other it lowers self-control. It isthat fatal combination that has been the undoing of many a man. On onenight of folly men have thrown away that which they may have guardedjealously for years, and not because they were vicious or gross innature, but only because they allowed the edge to go off theirsobriety. Often by the next night they would have given almost anythingto be able to live that bit of life over again and live it differently. But it was too late. I know of no argument for temperance that hasanything like the weight of this one. 

Then, too, a word must be said about the broad jest and the undesirablestory. 

Many a broad jest is excused because it has in it some savor of realhumor; but it would be well for us to ask ourselves deliberately whatthings we are going to allow ourselves to laugh at. We all laugh atsome of the ways of lovers and no doubt we always will. They havebeautiful ways, but beyond question some of them are amusing. Thereis no possible reaction to a girl's persuasion that her boy is purehero and saint except a smile; and love itself will blend with suchsmiles. 

But it is quite a different thing to bring laughter to bear on loveitself, or on marriage, or on the sacramental intimacies that expresslove. I believe it is a profane thing to do. Our best instincts callon us to treat these things as sacred. And sacred things are easilyspoiled by careless speech. No vulgarities are quite so vulgar as thosewhich, in printed rags and ragged talk, are clustered round marriage. In the name of all that is beautiful and holy let us be done with them. 

Further still, a great many broad stories have in them a minimum ofhumor and a maximum of dirt. By a strange perversity men who arescrupulously clean in body and who have both intellectual and artisticcapacities will stoop to defile their tongues with such things. Thereare few colleges or offices where public opinion entirely forbids them. But they do a deadly work none the less. They cling about the mind withfatal tenacity. They surround the subject of sex with uncleanassociations. They defile the inner house of life. And it is in thatinner house of thought and imagination that the real battle ofpurity is fought. 

Our real task in this part of life is to see sex as a clean andbeautiful thing, to be treated with reverence. Thousands of peoplenever achieve this, even though they live respectable and decent lives. And the reason lies in the fact that in their early days vile storiesand jokes defiled the whole subject for them. 

A similar thing is true of pictures. Some day we shall as a racerecover the sense that the form of a woman is one of the most beautifulthings in all God's earth. We shall look at the great statues andpictures which do justice to that beauty with no other feelings thanthankfulness and joy. But there are very few men who can do that today. What has made it impossible is the existence of pictures of asuggestive kind, which are handed round in furtive ways, and areliterally drenched with unclean associations. For which reason it is areal point in connection with a man's struggle that he should havenothing to do with suggestive pictures. Many years ago I had a friendwith great intellectual power. He held a position of greatresponsibility and was widely respected. He also had conspicuousliterary gifts, and knew how to work hard and well. But he brought tome the greatest shock I have ever had in my life. When he was well onin the forties he suddenly fell with a crash, and had to fly thecountry. He was never able to show his face in England again, and dieda diseased exile in a foreign land. And all because he had beenovertaken by sexual sin of an indescribably shameful kind. The shock hegave me was one of sorrow, for he had been a friend. But it wasstill more one of amazement that such a thing could have happened tosuch a man. Later I came to understand. When his effects were beingsold there was found in his study cupboard a great pile of indecentFrench plays and novels. That was what did it. In secret he had foryears debauched his mind, and inevitably in the end his thoughtsbrought forth fruit. That experience taught me once for all how certainit is that the inner world of thoughts is the real place where a manattains or misses purity. 

There is something grim and stern about this business. I confess to acertain wholesome fear in connection with it which I hope never tolose; though fear will never do as our predominating emotion in thisrespect. But I keep a place for fear--enough of it to drive me to myknees. I have seen boys go wrong at fifteen, and I have seen old mengo wrong at sixty. I believe that no man is safe until he is dead. Hewas no coward, nor had he a licentious past behind him, who confessedthat late on in life he had to beat his body and bring it intosubjection lest having preached to others he should be a castaway. Heknew; and was honest and wise enough to keep up precautions to the end. There is simply no way through this part of life for the man with slackhabits and a self-indulgent attitude of spirit. The man who will notstand up and brace himself, who is not game for a fight, and will notendure hardness is never going to make anything fine out of thesplendid but difficult enterprise we call human life. And all the timehe will need to have his sentinels out. All the time he will need tomake sure that he is master in his own house of life, and allows nointerloping thoughts or imaginations to run riot there. 

But what about religion! The conventional way in which to end a plaintalk about any sort of temptation is to say that God can and will helpa man in those straits where his own will is too weak, and that throughprayer there is a way of escape for us all. I believe all thatabsolutely. With great gratitude I may say that I know it. Indeed Icannot understand how any man who has been saved from overthrow canfail to see as he looks back on his life that it was just the goodnessof God that upheld him. But I have learnt to beware how I tell men andwomen that by prayer they can get through, though all other means fail. Men who were having to face a severe strain of temptation have comeback to me and told me that they had tried the way of prayer and thatit had not availed them. The fact is that something far greater thana mere attempt to use prayer as a special device for this special needis required. 

We are so made that religion is a divine possibility for all of us. Indeed it is more than a possibility: it is a necessity if life is everto seem complete. Without it all other things fail in the end to holdoff attacks of disappointment and ennui. Because we were made with thecapacity for it, we cannot be content without it. It may take manyyears for a man to discover that without religion life is going to be afailure; and it is that discovery that constitutes for many the tragedyof middle life. In early days the varied interests of life carry manythrough in some sort of satisfaction. And yet even with the young thelife that is without religion is of necessity an unbalanced life. Parts of the man or woman concerned are inactive, and the other partsoccupy too much of the stage. Till an interest in God--that greatest ofall interests--has entered a man's life attention is too much concernedwith other things. Till the spirit is awake the body obtrudes itselftoo much on consciousness. And thus a man fights the battle of purityon wrong terms. There is no interest so cleansing as an interest inGod. Nothing so takes a man out of himself as the attempt to face Hisdemands. Nothing is so certain to counterbalance all unruly thoughts asto know and worship Him. No discipline is so bracing and purifying asthe discipline of seeking Him. 

But this seeking of God means something much greater than the mereattempt to use prayer for a special purpose. It means getting our wholelife rightly related to Him. It means subordinating our desires to Hiswill, and seeing our whole life as something to be used for His glory. Religion cannot be made a mere appendage to life. It cannot be kept inan outhouse like a motor bike, to be used when occasion calls. When Godcomes into a life He comes to rule--and to rule everything. No doubt weare all tempted to resent the surrender of self which is thus asked ofus. Instinctively we cry out for our own way. We want to manage our ownlives and to plan out our futures in such ways as will please us. Because religion involves discipline and obedience, we are all apt toturn away from it. We may have liked some of the emotions which areassociated with worship, and inspired by religious thoughts. But wewant to call no one Master--not even God. So long as that state lastsno one will find religion a help in the battle with temptation. If wefaced the truth about ourselves many of us would find that what wereally want is to be allowed to live rather worldly and selfish livesand then to be able to bring God in on occasion to save us from certainparticular sins which we loathe. But that cannot be. 

In other words, the way of escape is to get one's whole life and one'swhole nature rightly related to God. That means the profoundest of allpossible readjustments, because it means that instead of puttinghimself in the center of every picture, a man puts God there. And whenthat readjustment has been completed the power of temptation is gone. Iwould not now say to a man merely that if he will pray he will get thehelp he needs. I would say that if he is willing for a real spiritualexperience he may pass into a new state of being, in which he willfight with success where he used to fail. Religion _will_ do all thingsfor you if you give your whole self to it, but it will not fit intolife as an occasional resource. 

Let no one suppose, however, that consciousness of God has no relationto the sexual side of life. Far from it. What the man who submits toGod will find is, firstly, that he is helped to clean and reverentliving, and to mastery over his body. But he will also find that whenat last real love calls him up into complete companionship of body andsoul with a woman he loves, God Himself will enter into that life andbecome associated with all the emotions and activities which springfrom the sex element in our beings. Such men will come to thank Godthat He made them with sexual powers in their natures. They will thankHim that passion is a fact. They will say with utter conviction thatlove with all it means both for the bodily and the spiritual life isthe greatest of all God's gifts to man. 

Only to have experience of that quality a man _must_ come to marriageundefiled. That is the fact that makes the struggle worth while. Thatis what Browning meant when he said it was

 "worth That a man should strive and agonize And taste a veriest hell on earth For the hope of such a prize. "

God does not call us men to a meaningless struggle. The fierceness oftemptation is _not_ mere cruelty. The prizes in this part of life aregreat beyond all telling. If any man who reads these pages will butbrace himself for the struggle and put forth all his manhood in orderto win through, the day will come when he and a woman who is dear tohim will thank God that he did fight, and will understand that it wasabundantly worth while. She is waiting for you out there in the future. She hopes and prays that when you do find her, you will be such a manas can be honored and truly loved. She probably keeps herself for you, even though you have not yet met her, with some delicate and shyreserve. You will never really be worthy of all that she will give you, but you may at least prepare for her and yourself a great and holyexperience. To know the full beauty of the thing that married life maybe is nearly if not quite the greatest of human attainments. To spoilit beforehand is the most pitiful of all pities. 

Wherefore get up and fight!

ADDENDUM, ESPECIALLY FOR YOUNG MEN STRUGGLING WITHSELF-ABUSE

It is in this form that sexual temptation comes into the lives of avery great many men, including many able, high-minded men. All thegeneral things already said in this chapter are relevant to your case, but I wish to add some direct words to you because I have acutesympathy with you in your trial. 

You ought, of course, to have been warned when you were very young, andthen you might have escaped the danger. Possibly you slipped into thehabit without at first realizing that it was wrong; and probably nowyou hate the habit, and even sometimes hate yourselves because of it. It is quite likely, too, that false and exaggerated things have beensaid to you about it and made you miserably afraid. 

Now it _is_ a bad habit. It is bad because you feel it to be unworthyand rather unclean, and it creates unhappy associations in your mind inconnection with sex, which is a very unfortunate thing for you. And itis a perversion. It is an unnatural way of satisfying sexual craving, and, as you know, it leaves psychic disturbance behind it. The oneperfect way of satisfying sexual desire is complete unionwith a woman you truly and honorably love. That leaves behind it afeeling of complete satisfaction and rest. All other ways leave psychicdisturbance. Further, this habit often leads to active homosexuality. I hear of men who talk as if homosexuality was quite a normal and rightthing with men of a certain type. It is, in fact, _always_ a regression(see quotation from Dr. Crichton Miller in chapter for girls, p. 107). Do get that fixed in your mind. It is an abnormal, unnatural thingwhich has definite and evil nervous results. 

But let me get back to the problem of self-abuse. 

The Student Christian Movement lately collected from a number ofdoctors, psychologists, and other experienced people, a body ofvaluable truths and suggestions about this matter, and I cannot dobetter than pass them on to you. 

_Firstly_, what are the facts about its consequences? These have beenexaggerated. Its effects are chiefly psychical. It does not affect theintelligence or weaken mental power. It takes long to weaken the body, and it is rarely, if ever, a cause of insanity. 

On the other hand, it does destroy self-respect; it does leave menpsychically disturbed, and for that reason it affects consciousness ofthe presence of God disproportionately quickly as compared with othersins, and produces the feeling of loss of spiritual power. There are, in fact, abundant reasons for desiring deliverance, though there is noreason for panic. 

As has been said again and again in this book, our sexual nature is agift from God, with glorious possibilities in it of enrichingexperience. That is why it is so very important not to misuse it. 

Now if you really want deliverance, you have first to realize that theseat of the trouble and of the cure is in the mind. (Occasionally thereis a slight abnormality that requires surgical treatment, but that isexceptional. )

The content of the mind in ordinary times is even more important thanat the crisis. It may be too late then. 

You must prepare the ground by resting on God even when you do not feelthe need of Him. Fill your mind with clean, healthy things, and expellustful thoughts, even though they may seem to have no special physicaleffects. 

Give full play to your affections--love of family, of friends, of menand women, and children. 

Devote your bodily strength, and the life force that is in you, togreat positive ends--the service of God and man. 

Keep healthy. Here are wise practical details. Take plenty of exercise, but not too much. Men often fail when tired out. Avoid heavy meals--especially late at night. Take cold baths daily. Do not lie in bedafter waking. Avoid quacks like the plague. Beware of the reactionsthat follow emotional excitement. Work off your emotions in positiveways. Emotionalism has danger in it. 

Learn to pray for the right thing, not for deliverance, but forstrength for victory. Learn to trust God in all things--in this amongothers. 

If you want to prevent the thing from obsessing you, you must not letyour failures obsess you. Turn your back on them. The only way to driveout one thought is to put another in. An attempt merely to shut down isdoomed to failure. Concentrate on active life and service. The truthis, you cannot have the help of Christ just for the cure of this evil. Give yourself wholly to Him, and you will find He has set you free. Youcannot bring religion in just for a part of life. If your whole life isin God's hands this trouble will disappear. 

_Lastly_, a word to the man who is down and out. 

God is strong enough and near enough for this never to happen again ifyou will let Him have the whole of you--not body only, but mind andheart and life. But if you do fail again, do not despair, do not blameGod, and do not say or think that He has finished with you. 

God's love is such that He will never turn from you if you turn to Him. God is no farther from the failures than from the successful. He caresas much for those who fail. 

The real and ultimate danger of this thing is not danger to your mindand body, but the danger that it may come between you and God. Wherefore come back to God every time. 

Remember, whatever the past has held, there are still greatpossibilities of happiness and victory before you through the power ofGod. 

Others are in as great difficulties, and others who were in them havewon through to victory. There is reason for hope. 

We are not meant always to stand alone. Two are more than twice asstrong as one. Perhaps you should share your difficulty. Only do notmake it an excuse for getting mawkish sympathy. 

CHAPTER VII

PROSTITUTION

(_A chapter for men_)

There are some things so unthinkable that they only continue becausepeople refuse to think of them. Sweating and slums are two such things, but the supreme example in the modern world is prostitution. 

It is not the prostitute who is unthinkable. She is only the tragicfigure in the center of a devil's drama. It is society's attitude toher that is unthinkable. By men she is used for their pleasure and thendespised and scorned. By women she is held an outcast, and yet she isthe main buttress of the immunity of ordinary women from danger andtemptation. She is the creation of men who traffic in lust and yet isheld shameless by her patrons. She is the product of the social sinsfor which we are all responsible, and yet is considered the most sinfulof us all. Often she was beguiled into her first mistake by thepretence of love, and because to that pretence she made a natural andsincere response. Sometimes she was cajoled into her mistake by olderfiends in the shape of women. Sometimes she suffered physical violenceat the hands of male fiends. Often she plunged into sin in desperationbecause in the modern world she could not get a living wage in returnfor honest work. Sometimes she made a wild, reckless dash towardsexcitement because she could no longer endure the stifling, drab, andhideous monotony coupled with privation which we allow to become thelot of millions. 

To her men show only their worst side, and women generally theirhardest. If she often regards both alike as devils, who shall blameher! Those who share her sin leave her to face alone the sufferingthat follows. For them society has a place even when their habits areknown. For her it has no place except a shameful one. Of real love, ofmotherhood, or of family life she may know nothing. Even of normalhuman relations she remains often ignorant. 

He in whom we profess to have seen God was ready to forgive and willingto love such women. We hold it wrong to forgive and impossible to love. 

For a few short years in early youth she may have money in plenty, andthen slowly she begins to sink. Her health becomes sapped. Oftenloathsome disease makes her a victim. As the shadows begin to gathershe will often turn to drink that for an hour she may recover thedelusion of well-being. Slowly but certainly the morass drags her down. Often she does not reach thirty. If she lives it is to face a state inwhich, toothless, wrinkled, and obscene, she is seen only by those whovisit the murkiest parts of our cities. She dies unmoored and unloved, and is hurried into an unknown grave. 

And she exists because men say they _must_ indulge their passions andwomen believe it. She is the incarnation not of her own but ofsociety's shame. She is the scapegoat for thousands who live on incareless comfort. Every man who touches her pushes her farther down, and our hollow pretence of social morality is built upon her quiveringbody. 

Will you men who read this please think about her! Think till you arehorrified, disgusted, and ashamed. Think till you realize thisunthinkable thing. And then remember that she exists only because ofus. We as a sex have created this infamy. We as a sex still continue tocondone it. 

And there is only one cure for it. It is that we should stop utteringor believing the lie that we must indulge our passions and should actupon the truth that continence outside marriage is perfectly possible, and that we owe it to women, to ourselves, and to God to achieve it. 

CHAPTER VIII

A GIRL'S EARLY DAYS

By early days I mean the years between sixteen and twenty-one orthereabouts, and I am sure there ought to be a chapter in this book onthis subject, though I am not at all sure that I can write it. I onlymake the attempt because I have been urged to try, and because a bookthat did not recognize how distressing the "emotional muddles" of thisperiod often are, would be a very unsympathetic production. 

Most men very quickly become clearly conscious of desires springingfrom their sexual natures, but most girls only do so very slowly. Whata girl is conscious of at this period is a new stress of emotion. Shefinds herself easily elated and easily depressed. She has moods shecannot understand or manage, and vague yearnings after she knows notwhat. Sometimes she will give way to outbreaks of temper, andafterwards feel acutely ashamed. Other people say of her that she is"difficult" or wayward, or trying; and she knows it herself better thanany of them. Sometimes she is irritable. Sometimes she will hearherself saying things she never meant to say, and will wonderafterwards why she did it. In society she often feels shy, awkward, andself-conscious, and then will hate herself for being likethat. She may try an assumed boldness of manner to hide her shyness, and yet that plan is not a great success. She has longings for thesociety of others, and then having found social intercourse difficult, is tempted to withdraw into herself. She is very easily wounded in heraffections, and often suffers from the effect of little slights ofwhich the authors are quite unconscious. On some days she will feelthat the world is a wonderful and splendid place, and life a gloriousdelight. And then on others life will seem mysterious and puzzling, andthe world cruel and hard. She understands with painful clearness whatRobert Louis Stevenson meant when he talked about "the coiledperplexities of youth. "

It is during these years that girls wake up to the attraction of men, and yet they find that relations with men are difficult things tomanage. The conventions of society often seem quite senseless, and yetthe policy of defying them does not turn out well. And so, as I havesaid, this is a difficult period for many girls. 

It is true that many get through it very happily. They may have goodhealth, happy homes, plenty of good friends, and many interests. Forthem it is a time of adventure, romance, and vivid joy. They correspondto the common conception of the fresh, happy, charming girl. But manyothers do not get through happily at all, and it is because their caseis common that this chapter is called for. 

I have already said as strongly as I can that it is of enormousimportance for girls to know the facts of life, and to get to know themfrom some clean and natural source. By the beginning of this periodthey ought to have been told about the wonderful and beautiful ways inwhich God has ordained that new human lives should be produced, andtherefore they ought to be in a position to understand themselves. Andif girls are not possessed of this knowledge I can only say that thesooner they take steps to acquire it in a wholesome way the betterfor themselves. Only take care to whom you turn. Let it be a woman of areverent and wise mind with a large and wholesome nature. There areothers. 

Those who do come to understand themselves in this way will realizethat the cause of their emotional complications is partly physical andpartly psychological. Both body and mind are awakening, withthe inevitable result that new instincts, emotions, and desires have tobe reckoned with. That is a universal experience for all of both sexes, and is just the price of entering on a larger world. Life _is_much more complex and mysterious than we at first imagined. It may bemuch more varied and splendid than we at first supposed. And thereforeinevitably it is also more difficult and more confusing. But it doesreally help us to realize that our early complex troubles have anatural and normal cause and that they are related to great possiblegains. 

At this point in life, further, the instinct for independence becomesoften exceedingly strong. All the conventions of society and thereceived rules for conduct are apt to appear mere tyrannous annoyances, cramping the free expression of personality. Society itself seemsrather like a monster threatening to absorb and confine us. To becompelled to consider others, and even to bow to authority, is to manyvery bitter. "I will at all costs be myself" is the natural cry of ahuman being at this stage, and because the world makes it difficult tocarry out that resolve life has a strain in it. Yet here also there issomething good. If each generation in turn did not thus demand freedomand self-expression the world would drift into senile decay. We cannotbe independent of society. We cannot have an untrammeled freedom. Andwe all learn that sooner or later. But because the urge towards newnessof life does reappear with every generation we do move on, thoughslowly. And if the price of this pulse of life in adolescents isrestlessness, irritation, and even occasional depression the gain isworth the price. 

For girls the process is often specially difficult. The task thatconfronts a girl at this stage is the task of accepting herself "as awoman. " I know it is not an easy task or so many girls would not beheard saying that they would rather have been boys. No doubt one reasonwhy girls feel this is that often their parents, and especially theirmothers, have shown a preference for the boys in the family and haveaccorded to them a favored position. The psychologists report that an"inferiority complex" has thus been formed in many a girl's mind. And thus a very real wrong is done to them. 

And yet this is not the whole explanation of the matter. In many girlsthere is a rebellion against their sex. Many hate the physical signs oftheir developing natures. It seems to them they are being called to apart in life which they have no wish to play. And if particularemotional stresses accompany that development, that may seem to themonly one further reason for being annoyed at the nature of things. 

I am sure too that the conventional notions of what a woman should bemust often prove very annoying, if not enraging. Many men still cherishthe idea of woman as a sort of household ornament--gentle and "sweet". Many have not accommodated themselves to the notion that a woman shouldknow the blunt facts about this hard life and this disordered world. Society often seems to expect of a woman that she should be submissive, patient, and merely gentle. And of course nature has ordained that manywomen should be strong, stimulating, and militant in spirit. Of areally great woman it was said to me the other day that she is reallymore like a flame than a "cow". But the "cow" idea holds the field inmany places. Well! happy those who have a sense of humor and can laughwhen society is very foolish. 

I dare not enter farther on a discussion of what it means for a girl toaccept herself "as a woman". In that matter men seem always to flounderinto folly. Even women are not yet agreed about it. Perhaps it is oneof the things that is only gradually being discovered at thisparticular stage of human experience. I am indeed sure that we do notyet know all that women are meant to be and are capable of doing forthe world. And that being so I can see that the difficulties which lieabout the path of life for women to-day are peculiarly trying. It maybe a real privilege to be a woman during this particular period ofdiscovery and experiment. But it cannot but be also rather a strain. The one thing that I can with certainty say is that a woman is calledto be like Christ--like Him in His meekness which was the outcome ofperfect selflessness and self-mastery--in His gentleness which was theproduct of sensitive love--but like Him also in His strength, Hisboldness, His resolute refusal to bend before evil, His positiveactivities in the name of love. 

One particular feature in a woman's impulse towards independence Icannot pass by without a special word. The very suggestion annoys somewomen that they are not complete in themselves without any relation tothe other sex. Being without any conscious desire for the companionshipof man, and without any definite sex consciousness, they resent theidea that woman is not complete in herself. To those who insist thatthe sexes vitally need each other such women would reply that they arealtogether exaggerating and over-emphasizing the sex element in life. 

Well, about the fact that man is not complete without woman I have nodoubt whatever. And I have no reluctance whatever about admitting it. Perhaps that fact gives me no right to dogmatize about the other sex, but a considerable experience has left me in no doubt about the matter. I do not mean for a moment that a great and useful career is notpossible to women quite apart from marriage. I do not forget that manywomen have great powers of intellect in the exercise of which they areliving in a world apart from sex difference. But I believe it to be aserious mistake for either man or woman to imagine that they have noclamant sex instinct hidden within the depths of their personalities. And if the instinct is there it can only be folly to try to obscure thefact. It has to be reckoned with if life is to succeed. In many womenit only awakens after early youth is past. The exceptions in whom itnever awakens must be very few indeed. If the attempt has been made toignore it the subsequent troubles are apt to be only the more intense. In this matter we are confronted with an unalterable decree of nature. To rebel against it is only to be broken in the long run. In variousand great ways the instinct may be turned to splendid uses other thanthe usual ones of marriage and motherhood. But the instinct is there, and if wisdom means understanding ourselves and handling ourselvesbravely, then it _must_ be reckoned with. To quarrel with the nature ofthings is mere folly. 

Another special feature of the period in a girl's life I am thinking ofis a tendency to intense and passionate affections for other women--atendency to idealize some other woman till she seems the center of lifeand adorable beyond words. A very real danger lurks here, and yet Iwould like to speak with great care about the matter, because a truefriendship is always one of the finest and most enriching things inlife, while a _grande passion_ for another member of one's own sex is adifferent thing with an undesirable element in it. 

In girls about thirteen or thereabouts _grandes passions_ for othergirls or for school-mistresses are very common, and so far from beingharmful they may serve a very useful purpose. They generally passaway pretty quickly, and unless the older woman has been unwise theyleave no bad effects behind them. 

But among older girls they are a very different thing and often lead toserious trouble and unhappiness. What has happened in such cases isthat an instinct which is designed to produce love for one of theopposite sex has been perverted to add an element of passion to whatshould have been merely a healthy friendship for another woman. And theresult is an unhealthy type of relationship. It is unhealthy because, to begin with, in this way girls let themselves go and allow theiremotions to run away with them; and that just at a time when it ismost important that they should have themselves in firm control. Andfurther, when members of the same sex employ lovers' language, andindulge in the imitation of lovers' endearments, there is somethingsickly about the whole business which healthy instinct condemns. I donot mean, of course, that when girls link arms or even embrace eachother in moments of excitement there is anything mistaken. To somepeople such expressions of emotion are as natural as breathing. But_grandes passions_ lead to much more than that sort of thing, and sobecome a serious evil. 

It is in connection with this problem that psychologists have broughtinto use the rather ugly word "homosexuality", though it means nothingmore dreadful than this tendency to put a member of one's own sex intothe place that should be occupied by a member of the other sex. But Ifind a certain amount of talk going on which assumes that some peopleare of the homosexual type, and that it is natural and right for themto express themselves in this way. As a matter of fact homosexuality_is always a sexual perversion_ and is fraught with great danger ofnervous disorder. Dr. Crichton Miller says in _The New Psychology andthe Teacher_: "From the point of view of psychological developmenthomosexuality in the adult is a regression. .. . Clinical experienceconfirms the view that in the long run the man or the woman of theintermediate type is bound to pay the price of regression in oneway or another" (p. 120). 

Of course the essential defect of these passionate attachments betweentwo women is that they can never fully satisfy. They cannot give awoman children, and they leave the mother heart in her starved. Forthis reason it is a primary obligation on each of the two to resolvethat so soon as a man enters the life of the other she will at allcosts make room for him, The cost of this may be very great, but lovethat is at all worthy of the name will not another from a path thatmight lead to marriage has misunderstood the very meaning of love. Women have repeatedly told me that the passionate relationships I amspeaking of lead to grave unhappiness. They almost never last, and theone who breaks away may cause acute suffering to the other; while anattempt to continue them after the life has gone out of them results ina very poor and pitiful relationship. And yet all this leaves stillopen the question of how they are to be dealt with in actual life. Onething worth saying is--Be warned in time, and do not let them grow. When they threaten they can be turned into true friendships by girlswho understand, and true friendship is always a bracing andstrengthening thing. But I would not for a moment suggest that a "G. P. " should be ruthlessly broken. That would often be a cruel thing todo which might cause great and even permanent damage to a sensitivenature. But if both who are involved in the matter will face the truthabout it, they may succeed in passing on into a natural and healthyfriendship which may be invaluable to both and a gain to society. If itbe asked wherein lies the essential difference between a G. P. And afriendship I think answer has been given in the words: "Friendship isan other-regarding emotion and proves itself to be an uplifting force, while a G. P. Is self-regarding, and consequently generally is sociallyexclusive and therefore harmful. " A G. P. Generally involves a desireto have somebody else all to yourself. That is the sign of theunnatural sex element in it. But a friendship leads to happy co-operation between two people in the work and recreation of the world. One of the tests of universal application in this realm of life lies inthe fact that real love always wants to give, and that the attitude ofwanting greedily to get is not true love. Many and many an unhappy girlwho frets and torments herself because she does not get all she wantsfrom some other woman would find the world and life transformed if shewould but wake up to the fact that in her bit of the world there areother people who need the love she might give them. She would thus finda noble outlet for her emotions, become a boon to other people, and inthe process discover her own happiness--possibly to her own surprise. 

I know very well what is likely to happen to some girls who read thesewords and who are involved in a passionately affectionate attachment. Ican almost hear one such saying, "Of course I see that these thingsought to be said, and that some girls are very silly about theirfriendships, and it only makes me the more thankful that in my caseeverything is so natural, and right, and good. "

We are all like that! We are extraordinarily slow to recognize in ourown lives the evils and dangers which we can see so clearly in thelives of others. And so I would like to make a direct appeal to allgirls, and to all men too, who are involved in these relationships. Doface the facts openly! Do look ahead! Do ask yourselves what you aregoing to do about these affairs as time goes on! You must know theycannot last in their present form. You would be right if you even saidthat they to last. You may drift along, always postponing any definiteaction, and just enjoying the present while it lasts. But that isexactly the way in which calamity is allowed to enter people's lives. And you and she, or you and he, might forthwith face the unalterablefacts I have been referring to, and take all danger by the throat andthrottle it. You might do that _now_. That is to say, you and your dearfriend might agree that you will at once get the passionate element outof your relationship, and forego the pleasure you have inthat respect. You might begin now to learn true friendship, and get ridof what is really a sickly thing. It might hurt--it probably would atfirst. But none of us human beings need be the mere creatures of ourfeelings. Our true and lasting happiness always depends upon refusingany such slavery. If you do achieve a wholesome and true friendship itmay enrich your whole future life. If you let things go on as they areyou will have a very unpleasant memory to humiliate you. 

I feel sure that certain general counsels apply with special force tothis part of life, and in particular the one which bids us all livebusy and positive lives. Brooding is not a wholesome occupation foranybody at any time, but, on the other hand, through hours of activeeffort emotion finds an outlet and our natures are restored to peace. Introspection is to many people an actual luxury, but like otherluxuries it enervates. Reveling in their own emotions is a favoritehobby with quite a lot of people, but for all that it is a very badone. There really should be no time for it. Our emotions are all neededas driving forces for the times of action. In particular thecultivation of a sense of beauty in art is one of the normal outletsfor emotion, and even for sex emotion. Some happy people can themselvesmake music, and so express themselves. Most of us find that commonkindness suggests that we should restrict our efforts in that directionto times when we are alone. But if we cannot play we can at least learnthe art of good listening. And if we are not musical at all we canperhaps appreciate true painting, or great poetry, or fine literature. It all helps. 

May I say a plain word or two about the shyness and self-consciousnessin society which so torment young girls? The first thing I would say isthat they will almost certainly pass away before long, and thattherefore they need not be bothered about. Lots of the most effectiveand socially successful men and women in the world went through apainful period of shyness in early youth, and now only smile at thememory of those days. 

In so far as that self-consciousness is produced by society of anysort, it is based upon the delusion that other people look at us andthink about us a great deal more than they do. It is also due to ahabit of minding what other people think and say a great deal more thanthe facts warrant. We are not so important as to attract much generalnotice, and other people are not so important that on account of theirprejudices and conventions we should distress ourselves. 

But in so far as discomfort in society is due to the presence there ofmembers of the opposite sex, there is something different to be said. The whole contention of this book is that the attraction whichexists between the sexes is a right and wholesome thing, and that theway of wisdom is to accept the fact of it quite simply. When that isdone it is found possible to let that mutual attraction issue infriendship and camaraderie of a kind that enriches and dignifies life. 

Of course all this is much easier for girls who have been brought upwith boys. They learn to be at home with the other sex, not to be fussyand foolish, and not to trade upon their sex. But that sort ofrelationship to men is also quite possible even for those who were notbrought up with boys, and in the attaining to it girls find their realpeace of mind. 

I would also like to put down here some thoughts about beautiful girls. 

A beautiful girl always makes me want to do two things. One is to thankGod for making so lovely a thing, and the other is to say a prayer thatshe may have special help given her for her specially difficult lot. For beauty is both a very great gift and a very hard thing to handle. Some of you must know that you are beautiful, and you are sure to findthe fact exciting, delightful, and yet embarrassing. You have greatpowers--powers over other women and over children in part--and verygreat powers over men. You can, if you will, use that power to inducemen to make fools of themselves. You can let yourselves slip into thehabit of living on admiration and feeding on the pleasure it givesyou. You can exploit your beauty to win through it things you do notreally deserve. People will forgive much to a beautiful woman, and youcan trade on that fact. You can get a great deal of your own way if youmaster the art of being charming as well as beautiful; and you can inthat way use your beauty to your own undoing, and make it partly acurse to others. In fact you are certain to have to face manytemptations which the majority of women escape. That is the hard partof your lot. All who understand know quite well that life cannot but bemore complicated for you than for most, and you have a very great claimon their sympathy. But the way to avoid your dangers is not to pretendto yourself that you are not beautiful. Pretence never helps us. Theway is to face the fact of your beauty, realize that you did not createit, and therefore need not be vain about it, and then go on to decidewhat use you are going to make of the power it gives you. It can beused for God--otherwise He would not have given it. It can be turnedinto influence of a very wonderful kind. If you can induce men to makefools of themselves, you can also draw out all that is best in them, and inspire them for fine living. In plain English, when a beautifulwoman is also a good woman she is one of the greatest boons to mankind. She can give great pleasure to others--but she can do more, shecan stir the latent idealism in men and women in wonderful ways. Shecan move through the world as a source of gracious, kindly, and bracinginfluence. Of course, once again, the essential secret is to think ofgiving and not of getting, to get self into the background and live forlove and service--to employ your great gift for the sake of the giverof it. I suspect that it must need a great deal of self-discipline--perhaps more than a man can understand. I am sure it must need a greatdeal of prayer. But it has been done, and can be done again. 

And that leads me naturally to the last thing I want to say in thischapter. I have already said in the chapter specially addressed to menthat the great help for the difficult early days of life is to be foundin religion. [Footnote: Cp. P. 80ff. ] And of course that is equallytrue for girls. 

Religion means having a great and worthy interest at the center of ourlives, which gives meaning to the whole of them. Being religious meansthat the essential and eternal part of us is coming into life, and italmost necessarily follows then that the other parts of ourpersonalities slip into their proper places. It means having an objectfor our affections more than worthy of all our deepest emotions, andmore than able to fill our empty hearts. Religion in the early days oflife is generally very emotional. I believe that that is perfectlyright and natural, provided we also make efforts to be sincere and tolove the truth. Because it is emotional, its value as an outlet forfeeling is very great. It does not remain at its first emotional level. Later on there comes an inevitable change when many think, quitewrongly, that they are losing their religion. But at the stage I amthinking of religion naturally and normally expresses itself in intensefeeling. We are all hero worshippers at that stage of life. Heroworshipping, however, is apt to get us into trouble, for our heroesfail us in time. The one perfect hero who never fails us is Christ. Healone never disappoints, and to love Him is to have all the noblerchords in our beings set in motion. We are sure to despair of everbecoming worthy of Him. But no leader of men was ever so willing totake us as we are and make the best of us. To be near Him may meanbeing made to feel deeply ashamed. In His presence we are sure to feelsmall and mean. But that also is a good thing, and in spite of it Heloves us. In other directions we seek with longing to find love, and often fail. With Him we may be quite sure of finding love. And Hegoes on loving to the end. 

Being loved by Him does at last draw out the best in us. Inevitably webegin to want to be more worthy--to serve and love others for Hissake--to know and love the truth--to find and worship beauty. And thatmeans having a life full of splendid and worthy interests. 

Emotional muddles may in fact be the lot of most of us for a while. Butif at the center of them all there is an honest love for Christ, theycannot overwhelm us; and in the long run we are sure to emerge into thelife that has both peace and power in it. 

CHAPTER IX

INVOLUNTARY CELIBACY

Modern England has for many generations been a place so unhealthy forthe young that a vast problem has grown up in our midst which seriouslydisturbs the normal adjustment of sex relationships. It would seem tohave been Nature's intention that there should be slightly more menthan women in the world, for boy babies outnumber girl babies[Footnote: The actual figures are 1052 boy babies to 1000 girl babies. ]What it would mean if there were more adult men than women in the worldit is hard to imagine. It would at once have enormous socialconsequences. No woman would remain a celibate except by her ownchoice. Men would have to behave themselves in order to win wives, andwould cease to occupy the demoralizing position of being able to getwives whenever they want them. It would in fact mean a new world inmany ways. 

As things are, however, the unhealthy conditions of modern life producea greater mortality among boy babies than among girl babies, and malescome to be in a minority. This state of affairs has been greatlyaggravated by the war, but it was serious even before 1914. It was thenthe case that the women outnumbered the men by about a million. Thenumber must be nearer a million and a half to-day. 

The result is that over a million women have to face the prospect of alife in which their most deeply implanted instincts--the instincts forwifehood and motherhood--cannot find their normal satisfaction, and theproblem thus created is one of the most difficult in the whole of life. It is, of course, nothing less than insulting nonsense to talk aboutthese women as "superfluous women. " Behind the very phrase there lurksthe old delusion that women are only needed in the world as wivesand mothers. As a matter of fact a great deal of the work that is mostneeded in our civilization--work in education, art, literature, nursing, social service, and other departments of life--is being doneby these women. 

But while that is true it is also true that the personal life of theunmarried woman presents acute problems of a most intricate kind. Probably only a woman can truly understand those problems or justlyestimate their urgency, but no man with any insight or sympathy canfail to know that the lot of the unmarried woman involves secretstresses, unsatisfied yearnings, and sometimes hours of darkdepression. She may be unmarried because she has persistently refusedto try to be satisfied with any second best. As a witty woman friend ofmine once put it, she may be unmarried because "the attainable was notdesirable and the desirable was not attainable. " She may be unmarriedbecause a very true lover of early days went on before, and she hasnever felt able to put anyone else in his place. Or she may have lovedtruly some man who loved another. Or nothing may ever have happenedto awaken conscious love in her, in which case it is still possiblethat her nature may cry out at times for the satisfaction of itsprimary needs. And while all this is true, she is conventionallysupposed never to show by any sign that she would have liked to bemarried. However much she may suffer it is held unseemly for her toshow that she suffers, or to ask for sympathy. She is often, and Ithink quite indefensibly, denied by social convention the stimulus ofany really intimate friendships with men. She is made the subject ofuncounted third-rate jokes. And if, as life goes on, she developspeculiarities of manner or asperities of temper--if she begins to losevitality and grace, these things are noted with contempt by people wholittle imagine how much real heroism may lie concealed in the object oftheir scorn. I believe, however, that I speak for a very large numberof men when I confess that nothing kindles in me quite the sameflame of resentment at things as they are, as just this fact that somany gracious and kindly women, plainly made for motherhood and fittedfor a fine part in life, should find themselves held in the clutches ofthis insistent problem. 

It may well help all such to realize the fact stated above, namely, that the problem is no part of the eternal and designed order ofthings, but one of the results of our social misbehavior. In a veryreal sense the women who suffer in this matter suffer vicariously forthe sins of all society. It is not they who are guilty, but allmankind. For all who mean resolutely to face the problem and to winthrough to victory, it is first of all essential that they shouldrealize the fact that their acute depressions and their restlessness ofmind have really a quite well-defined physical and psychological cause. Somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five these depressions oftenbecome very acute, so that the whole horizon of life is darkened. Sensitive women often torment themselves by wondering what they havedone that is wrong, for of course all depression is apt to take theform of a sense of wrongdoing. Further, at this period the religioussensibilities of many seem to suffer eclipse. They can no longerrespond in feeling to any of the sublime religious truths. They findthey cannot pray. Nothing seems to matter. The memory of earlier dayswhen life seemed bright and religious faith was confident seems only tomock them. Many are beset by definite intellectual difficulties and soare tempted to a general cynicism. Envy of others will suggest itself, and though it be sternly repressed, it still adds to the generalstrain, while good advice from others will seem just the last strawwhich cannot be borne. 

But one half of this problem has disappeared at once for many from theday when they faced the plain truth that the cause of trouble isphysical. Physiological processes with certain inevitable psychologicalaccompaniments are at the bottom of it. Because their natures have notreceived their natural fulfillment a complicated situation has arisenwhich cannot be easily lived through, though it may be in the endtriumphantly controlled. And if it helps ordinary people to learn thatsometimes when they seem to be suffering from a sense of sin they arereally only being plagued by indigestion, it may very much more helpwomen in this difficult period to know that they are only going throughan inevitable physical readjustment. What is happening is that sexualdesire--it may be in vague, unconscious, and very general forms--isasserting itself. Nothing could be more absurd than to suggest thatthere is anything wrong or immodest in that fact. It is quiteinevitable. Indeed, the first step out of the trouble lies in acceptingthe fact and then in considering how it is to be dealt with. 

What is the way out of this difficult bit of life? All said that can besaid about the physical and psychological causes, a very real problemremains. There must be a way of meeting it which ends in completevictory, for women who have come through it victoriously are to befound on all hands. What has been the secret of their victory? I preferto let a woman begin the answer. "I think, " writes one, "that the onlypossible thing for such women to do is to have their eyes fixed on God, and to know that in some mysterious and wonderful way He understandsand meets all our needs. I think it needs a definite act--of our wills, our intellects, and our emotions--an act of consecration andself-offering to God, and until that is done there will be no peace. "And then, after expressing her conviction as to the insufficiency ofthe policy of mere sublimation she continues, "I really believe thatfor women a real act of surrender--a joyful offering to God--is theonly way. "

I am sure the ultimate wisdom about this whole matter is contained inthose sentences, and I am sure because there are numerous otherdepartments of life in which similar problems assail both men andwomen, and in relation to which the way of self-surrender is the onlypossible way to life. 

After all, it is not only unmarried women who have to face theexperience of wanting passionately something which they cannot have. Invarious forms that challenge comes to most men and women whethermarried or not. Our desires demand one thing, and life with itsimperious authority offers something different; and it is perhaps inthat way that most of us come to the crisis of our lives. It is easy tobreak oneself against a situation of that sort. It is easy to spoillife completely by an obstinate concentration on the object that isbeing withheld--to lose life by insisting on finding it in one's ownchosen way. Men and women alike make shipwreck of their lives in thatway every year. 

But there is another way. Our real life is life in God, and the wayinto it is always the way of surrender. To say with utter sincerity andabsence of self-will, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" is to beginto find deliverance at once. We could not and should not surrender thusto anybody else. He alone perfectly understands. But when we have putourselves into His hands without reserve, immediately life begins toarrange itself. With such surrender there comes a peace which nothingelse can bring. I say it with acute sympathy for all strong-willed, high-spirited people, for whom surrender is very difficult. But I sayit with an assurance that is based upon the unanimous verdict of thesouls of all history who have found life. "I have learned, " said onemuch harassed and persecuted man, "in whatsoever state I am thereinto be content. " He was content because in whatsoever state he might behe was always in the fellowship of God, and therefore in enjoyment ofhis essential life. He knew himself secure whatever life might bring, and even though life itself should end. He was inwardly in a state ofprofound peace and spiritual freedom, and that is why all the graciouspowers of his humanity were able to find free and beautiful expression. 

So it must be with all of us. We find our real life, and we becomemasters or mistresses in life only when we have given in and allowedthe love of God to direct and sustain us. For the particular problemdealt with in this chapter and for all other painful and pressingproblems of life, the way of victory is to seek and find the life thatis hid with Christ in God. 

 * * * * *

No doubt at this point two questions will arise in the minds of some. Firstly, some will want to say, "All that is very well for those whoare religious, but how about the people who are not religious?" I haveno answer to that question, because I believe there is none. Religionis not a sort of hobby that just seems to suit certain peculiar people. It is a prime necessity for all of us. In a great many otherconnections it becomes increasingly plain to all who have eyes to seethat there is no solution for the problem of life except the one whichGod Himself offers to all seeking souls. We may refuse to seek Him, butin so doing we close the prison doors against ourselves. I am notsurprised that in studying the problems of sex I find no answer to themost acute of them apart from religion. That is what I should expect. Is it likely that men and women who were made for God should ever findany lasting satisfaction or any way to victory in life apart from Him?And indeed, in the particular connection I am now writing about, it isthe fact that not a few women have lived to be almost thankful for theproblem of involuntary celibacy that once confronted them in somenacing a way. It threw them back on God, and their experience of Himhas been so rich that they are thankful for the compulsion that drovethem into His fellowship. 

There is no mysterious hunger in the inner life of any woman--norestless longing ever torments her--no painful stresses ever make herlife seem difficult--no weary loneliness ever makes the world seemdesolate, but He understands--perfectly and utterly. And if it be lovethat a woman longs for, there is no love like unto His love--perfect intenderness, in understanding and in power. Yes, God Himself is thefinal answer to the problem of all lives that here seem to beunfulfilled, whether they be lives of men or women. 

The other question that will be raised will be put in these words: "Youhave said that in the dark hours that come to so many women religiousfeeling seems to be suspended, and yet you go on to say that the way ofescape lies in religion, " I know that what I have written may seem forthis reason utterly tantalizing to some. I know that in general it isin times when we most need religion that it is apt to seem most remotefrom us. Most of us have been in that dilemma. But there is a way out. It consists partly in remembering that religion is not only a matter offeeling, and that when feeling fails us the mind and will remain. Butit consists still more in remembering that religion is not so much ouraffair as God's. God does not only answer the prayers of people who arefeeling religious. If religion be what the experience of thousandsdeclares it is, then we have reason to expect that our seeking of Godwill have results even when our emotions seem dead. We can at leastdirect our thought life. We can set ourselves towards Him by thedeliberate direction of attention. We can think the true and rightthoughts. And in that way a religion begins to come into lifethat is tenfold more abiding and sustaining than any religion that is amere matter of feeling. It may need rigid self-discipline and reallyhard work thus to direct attention and attain to a regulated thoughtlife. But then, I am not suggesting that there is an easy way throughthis problem. There is a way, and a way that leads to real victory; butit is no more easy than any other path that leads to a great goal. 

I should like further to draw on the experience of women themselves toadd some additional suggestions born of common sense and experiment. Avery wise woman once supplied through me some hints to one who wasgoing through this difficult period, and I am sure her hints are worthpassing on to others. She insisted that no woman at this stage shouldattempt to live alone. Healthy friendship with other women is one ofthe greatest possible helps to success. As I have noted in a previouschapter, there is a danger that lurks not far away in this connection. But too much cannot be said of the helpful and bracing influence offriendships that are kept really healthy. Then, it is a mistake forwomen to live in institutions when that can be avoided. It reallyhelps to have some room or rooms in the care of which the home-makinginstinct can find expression, and which may thus become a means toself-expression. More important still, my friend insisted that it isbetter at this period to work with people than with things. Otherpeople always tend to draw us out of ourselves, if we will allow thatto happen. They make demands on our affections. They keep us in touchwith real life and its vast variety of emotions and interests. Theymake self-forgetfulness possible. Further, it is important for suchwomen--as important as for all other people--to learn the truth thatthe way to win love is to give it. When people suffer tortures ofloneliness it is essentially loneliness of heart. Like all other normalpersons they long to be loved. But nothing is more futile in such asituation than simply to sit down and wait for someone to come alongand love us. That way lies despair. What we can do is to awaken tothe fact that all around us are people who also long to be loved, andthat we have love to give them if we will but be generous. They may notseem very attractive people, but in that case they only need our lovethe more. Is it not being loved that makes people lovely! And whenwomen rouse themselves to use their own love generously for others, they begin--always--to find the doors of deliverance opening. 

A further very great step will have been taken when it is realized thatthe life force which is not going to have its normal and natural outletneed not on that account be wasted. It can be directed to other endswith enormous benefit to the world. I cannot hope to say anything onthis point one-half so adequate or so helpful as the chapter MissRoyden has already written in _Sex and Common Sense_. Out of thefullness of knowledge she has gained by an amazingly sensitive sympathyshe has there written the best account I have ever seen of how thwartedsex emotion can be sublimated to other ends, and made an immenselyeffective force for the progress of the race. In both men and womensexuality is just life force. If the natural method of expression bedenied to it, it will still seek out ways in which to express itself. If it has been merely repressed unwillingly and incompletely theresults, as the psychologists are telling us, are apt to be disastrous. But if the situation is openly faced, and honestly accepted--if aconscious surrender of the normal sex career be achieved--then it ispossible to utilize the life force that springs from our sex naturesfor great physical, mental, or emotional activities, and that withoutany of the evil results that follow from mere repression. In fact byliving an abundant life in natural, useful, and absorbing ways theproblem becomes capable of a truly happy solution. 

I have written the word "happy" deliberately. But I am not sure that atfirst this way out will seem happy. Useful it certainly will be, butall said and done I fancy that some residue of regret will be apt toremain, and that because of it women will be tempted to indulge inself-pity. And self-pity both for men and women is the most enervatingof all emotional luxuries. Therefore, I wish to insert here a word ofgrateful testimony. If the sublimation of sex instinct seems to somewomen a poor and pale substitute for the normal career of marriage andmotherhood, I am at least sure that for society at large it is a veryblessed substitute. My chief experience of life has been in thoseplaces called slums, where life is always seen in its most drab andpitiful guise, and I can speak with certainty about this problem inrelation to them. In the districts in which I have worked there havealways been at least a few unmarried women who were spending withlavish generosity their whole life force in practical service andsympathy for needy children, harassed mothers, wayward men, and thesufferers of the district in general. No members of the human race areliving anywhere with greater effect. No other women are called blessedwith greater sincerity. Half a dozen in particular I can think of whoin this way have done more for the redemption of society in such placesthan a score of happily married mothers could have accomplished. I donot know whether they feel that the sublimation of their instincts hasbeen a complete success, but I do know that hundreds of grateful peoplehave no doubt about it whatever. The whole world in its modern guise iscrying out for such services as women alone can render, and if, on theone hand, women are the chief sufferers through the confusions of humanaffairs, they have at least a wonderful chance of finding and applyingthe remedy. The world can never make good to them the wrong it has donethem; yet they may, if they will, put the world inexpressibly in theirdebt. No doubt mankind does not deserve it, but the one perfect loverin history was willing to die for an undeserving world. It can never beother than a great calling to follow where He leads the way. 

A woman of great experience tells me that here I ought to suggest thatin that minority of cases where it is possible, an unmarried woman maywith great advantage adopt a child. There are many children in theworld to-day without parents, and these children have a greatlylessened chance of life. But when one of these children is adopted inthe way suggested a great benefit is brought firstly to the child, secondly to society, and thirdly to the woman herself, who thusacquires a worthy object for all the passionate devotion she possesses. Having known this plan adopted in several instances, I have wonderedwhy it is not more common, at least when financial considerations makeit a possibility. 

No doubt to take this course or any of the other courses here suggestedwill need courage. But all successful ways of life need courage. Lifeitself is a challenging summons to courage. There is no happy waythrough for those who sit down in fear or who give in to their owndistresses. Fate is a tyrant only to those who will not face him withspirit. A full and satisfying life has to be snatched from under theenemy's guns, but it can be so snatched. Neither men nor women needgive in though often defeated. "Unconquering but unconquered" may bethe best motto that we can hope to deserve, but for all those whoinscribe it on their banners a strange happiness does creep into thesoul. 

CHAPTER X

THE ART OF BEING MARRIED

I

HOUSEHOLD HARMONY

I have the greatest sympathy with married couples who never read anybooks or pamphlets containing advice to married people, and aredetermined that they never will. Once a man and a woman have left theirrespective homes and set up in one of their own their common life is soentirely their own affair, and they have such a clear right to resentall intrusions into it, that the policy of rejecting all advicebeforehand has clearly something to be said for it. 

And yet, because no one need read this chapter unless he or she likes, I put it in; and if any wife or husband does read it, I hope that inthat case both husband and wife will do so. I really write it not somuch for those who are already married, as for those still unmarried. It matters so much--so very very much--with what preconceptions andassumptions we approach wedded life. 

Of course Mother Nature teaches the great art of living in the marriedstate to thousands. Two sensible people endowed with some patience, some common sense, and a great deal of affection have every right toexpect that without much difficulty they will find for themselves theright way in marriage. Uncounted couples who read no books and neverheard of psychology have made a lifelong success of it simply by beingnatural, brave, unselfish, and really loving. Many such simply wonderwhen they hear others talk about the difficulties, dangers, and painfulexperiences connected with marriage. They never found these things intheir marriages. The last thing I would like to suggest to the youngis that they need be afraid. Personally I agree with the man who saidthat on his wedding day he had entered a new and splendid country forwhich he felt quite unworthy and that he had never since ceased towonder and thank God for its beauties, its interests, and its delights. 

Yet there are other couples--couples who have made mistakes, and nowtalk rather bitterly about marriage; and it is because I believe thateven a little more knowledge and a little more patience might haveprevented those mistakes that I offer the following pages with mycongratulations and good wishes to all who are about to marry. 

There are no absolute rules for the conduct of married life. There areonly truths to be recognized. We are all apt at times to wish forabsolute rules. We think they would make life easier. We even wishsometimes that Jesus had given us absolute rules and not simplyprinciples. But in fact rules always turn out to be galling things. They are not for free personalities who differ enormously inconstitution and temperament. The right way for A and B might prove tobe just the wrong way for C and D. The problem is one which has to beworked out by each couple afresh. It is a problem of mutualaccommodation between two persons each of whom is an original creationof God. It is the problem of taking two different life themes andworking them into one harmony. 

Nor do I think that we achieve much by thinking or speaking of "rights"in this connection--about "his" right to rule here, and "her" right tobe considered there. No doubt husbands and wives have rights--inalienable and august rights. But married life is part of love'sdomain, and in that region the language of the law courts is out ofplace. When either of the two begins to think about enforcing orclaiming rights something has already gone wrong. 

And this I think is chiefly a point for men to consider. The conceptionof a husband as a sort of Czar within his own home still lingers, though it may not be openly proclaimed. Men still grow up with the ideathat a wife should be a sort of submissive and very charming slave, honored by occasional demonstrations of affection, and that the wholehousehold should be ordered to suit his lordship's convenience. Suchmen will protect their wives, give them money, make love to them, humorthem, and honor them in public; and in return will expect somethinglittle short of sheer submission. Behind all this lurks thehalf-conscious idea that woman is man's inferior, and that idea reallydoes remain hidden even in the minds of some who would repudiate it. Thefact is that the ultimate value of marriage--the thing that makes itgood fun, as well as a noble thing--lies in the fact that men and womenare so different; that they have not the same powers, and canalternately take the lead in their common life. It is comradeship, andnot mere occasional love-making, that they must achieve in order to bepermanently happy, and comradeship is a relation in which each must befree to be his or her natural self. 

Marriage _can_ be made a cramping thing, and then in time it becomesalmost an insufferable thing. But if each will give the other room togrow it can be an enlarging experience. It may contain the sum of theinterests of two different people. If mutual learning is brought intoit, it dignifies the lives of both. I believe in obedient wives. Butthen I also believe in obedient husbands. If I did not follow my wife'slead in some departments of life, I should be neither more nor lessthan a fool. And I believe that she is quite wise to follow my lead insome other connections. 

What all this really points to is that the element of liberty is worthconserving within marriage with very great care. When a wife has noprivate means it is an essential thing for the husband to give herregularly a stated allowance and to ask no questions as to how it isspent. It is a good thing--a very good thing--to make certain that, ifpossible, a wife has a holiday now and then from the heavy bondage ofhousekeeping. It is even a good thing that she should have a holidaynow and then from the charms and joys of family life. For we men arevery like children in the way we come to depend on our wives. All ourlittle woes must be brought to them--from buttonless shirts to thepitiful tale of our last defeat at golf. The children consult themdaily about a hundred things as of right, and their husbands must oftenseem to them the biggest bairns of the lot. I quite see why women likeit. But it must get very wearing at times. It surely is a good thingthat now and then a wife should turn her back on it all, meet oldfriends, have days in which to enjoy herself without any bothers, andeven for a few hours forget her exacting if charming dependents. 

It is equally important not to forget a husband's liberty. 

No doubt a great deal of cruelty lies to the charge of husbands who areout night after night, leaving their wives--already weary after a day'sheavy work--to sit bored and alone, while they enjoy the company oftheir male friends, or hunt after their favorite pleasures. It is quiteright that wives should refuse to tolerate such treatment. But theentire reversal of that policy is apt to work badly also. A husbandshould not drop all the masculine interests of his life, nor give uphis old friends, nor resign from all the responsibilities that willtake him sometimes out at nights. And a wise wife will not allow him todo it. Somewhere between the two extremes I have indicated lies thewise path in this connection. 

Then is it not time that somebody boldly said that husbands ought to dosome of the housework? I have no time to discuss the ethical problemraised by the households where paid servants do it all. They are a verysmall minority of modern households, and in all the rest the wives do agreat deal of the housework--generally all of it. Some of it is heavymuscular work, such as carrying coals or moving furniture. The restmakes up an employment which is more constant, needs more brains, andcalls for more administrative capacity than any man can imagine till hehas tried to do it. Of course men say they cannot do such work. Whichis plain rubbish. It only means that they do not like doing it. Neitherdo many women. And men can do most of it perfectly well if they willonly take the trouble to learn how it is done. I do not mean that Ipropose for men such jobs as matching wools, or making babies' clothes, or arranging the drawing-room. There are limits to our powers. But I doseriously mean that setting fires, cleaning grates, carrying coals, making beds, washing dishes, cooking, scrubbing floors, cleaning brassand silver, etc. , etc. Are things which the average man can do quite aswell as the average woman. Why then should they all be piled upon theweary back of the woman? Because, you probably say, the man must hurryoff to business in the morning, and comes home too tired at night. Yes!most of us really believed all that before the war, and then we beganto make discoveries. One was that there can be a lot of time before aman goes off to business, and another was that the man is not moretired by 6. 30 p. M. Than the woman, and can do a lot of useful thingsif he has the will. And I urge this point not only because it is in theclearest sense only fair, but because until a man does in this way takehis share of the home burden he cannot understand his wife's life, andcannot give her intelligent sympathy. 

The instinctive male attitude to household details is often expressedin the phrase that they are "bally nonsense, " or something else equallypicturesque. But when a little experience has taught a man how _very_uncomfortable he would be if the details were not right, he isforthwith able to be a much more intelligent friend to his wife. I donot think fathers ever really know their little children till they havehelped in looking after them at bedtime, in the early morning, and atmeals. And I am sure that no man ever knows what a crowded and terrificthing life can be till he has been left at home alone for a wholeevening to look after two or three. When he has undergone thatsearching experience he will forthwith respect his wife with a newsincerity. 

It is extraordinary too what a jolly business housework can be when twopeople go at it together and get all the possible fun out of it. On theother hand, when it is all done by lonely people it can be vilelytedious. Thousands of husbands have no idea of this. If they searchedtheir own minds they would find that their idea of their own homes isthat they are places to be kept clean and comfortable for them, andtheir idea of their own wives is that they are women whose first dutyis to minister to their comfort. Any suggestion that this may mean avery dull life for wives is met by a snort, and some muttered murmurabout "poisonous modern nonsense. " But in spite of that or any othermore brilliant adjectives that may be employed the suggestion isunalterably true, and if, having made life as dull as that for theirwives, such men find that marriage itself is not turning out well, itis high time they should wake up to the fact that they themselves areto blame. 

And yet may some kindly Providence save us all from the women who neverforget the house--whose domestic possessions seem to constitute mereextensions of their nervous systems, so that if you kick the fender yougive them the jumps--who cannot sit still once they have seen a speckof dust, and cannot turn with free minds to any wider interest. Theyhelp to fill clubs and pubs. But they ruin homes. I want husbands toshare the housework chiefly because in that way it will get done thesooner, and give both husband and wife some free time. If they wantreally to live they must take care to get away at times from all suchmerely domestic concerns. If need be let the supper dishes lie dirty, but out of sight, until to-morrow--if need be, let your husband wear asock with a hole in it--put off cutting out baby's trousers, and evenlet your new blouse go without that alteration in the meantime, but onmost evenings at all costs get some time to read, or enjoy music, or goout, or talk, or dream, or do nothing. The problem of civilization isunsolved for those who let the house tyrannize over them, and theproblem of marriage also. All of which may seem rather trivial andunimportant to some men, but in my belief it is connected in astrangely intimate way with the success of life. 

Of course the converse to all this is that wives do well to enter intotheir husbands' interests. It is often done with amazing success. I canthink at the moment of doctors, lawyers, engineers, shopkeepers, scholars, writers, financiers, teachers, and ministers whose wives haveentered keenly and with intelligence into all their cares, plans, andlabors. And in every such case the friendship between man and wife hasbeen very close, and the marriage truly happy. When this is not done, Ioften wonder why. I suppose some wives do not understand theirhusbands' affairs at first, and cannot be bothered trying tounderstand. I suppose that some husbands are too impatient to explain, and that others really cannot. If so it is a pity. Possibly some wouldrather not explain. I have often wondered what the wives of many modernbusiness men think of modern business methods; and I suspect thatgenerally they simply do not know the truth. But I repeat it is a verygreat pity when a wife has no relation to her husband's business. Itmeans that he has a life quite apart from her. And if it be said thatmany a man wants to forget his business and all its worries as soon ashe gets inside his own front door, it is equally true that often suchmen have worries they cannot forget, and that they would be strongerand happier men if they only knew what a woman's sympathy is. 

All of which seems to me so very important--so inevitably important--that I cannot but think it should be remembered when young men andwomen are deciding about their marriages. Have you noticed the lines onthe face of that greatest of men--Abraham Lincoln? They were there inlarge measure because he married a woman who could not or would notshare his real life. 

II

PHYSICAL HARMONY

It is beyond all question that in many cases where marriage is notturning out happily the real cause lies in some failure to achieve realand true adjustment of the sexual relationship which marriageinvolves. 

Here again there are no absolute rules. Miss Royden, for instance, haswritten a most notable chapter called "The Sin of the Bridegroom" inwhich with fine candor she points out how cruel it may be for a husbandto suppose that on the first night of his marriage, and after a day ofgreat fatigue, his wife will necessarily be emotionally attuned for herfirst experience of intimacy, and how fatal the results may be if heimposes himself upon her in an unresponsive hour. I am sure thatevery word in that chapter is true and important. I agree with thesuggestion that every man should read it before he marries. But it isalso true that many couples who did then experience intimacy can lookback upon the first night of marriage as on a sacred occasion whichthey recall with wonder. 

Yes, there are no absolute rules. But there are unalterable facts. Andthe supremely important one here is that sexual intimacy is only aperfect experience when it is a mutual experience. I think the delusionis nearly dead that woman is a passionless creature, who will neveractively desire her husband but who ought to be willing to receive himwhenever he desires. Happy marriages can only be built upon the graveof that misconception. It was held to be a view honoring to women. As amatter of fact it led to a great deal of cruelty. No doubt women differgreatly, but in every woman who truly loves there lies dormant thecapacity to become vibrantly alive in response to her lover, and tomeet him as a willing and active participant in the sacrament ofmarriage. And till that dormant capacity has been stirred into lifesexual intimacy may be actually repulsive, with the result thatchildren may be born who are not in the full sense the product ofcreative love, and that the relations of husband and wife may remaindifficult and unsatisfying to both. 

This is not what God ordained. There is an art of wooing which Natureteaches to many men, and would, I think, teach to all men if they werepatient and willing to learn. It consists in a love-making that appealsto the mind, the heart, and ultimately the body, and through it alonecan a woman be attuned for her natural part in marriage. It is herinalienable right thus to be wooed before sexual intimacy is asked for, and husbands who are too impatient to offer such wooing do her a realwrong. 

There are times when a woman cannot respond, and a true husband mustlearn to recognize such times. Some of them are perfectly obvious. Whena woman is not well, or is fatigued--when pregnancy has advanced beyondits early stages--when full health has not been recovered afterchildbirth--at these and at other times the conditions are not presentfor a true sexual experience, and in the name of his love a man mustlearn not to ask for what cannot be freely given. 

None the less it is not always and only the husbands who make mistakesin this part of life. A woman must be at least willing to be awakenedand made responsive, and many women have a strange power of controllingthemselves in this matter. They can repress their natures even whendesire has begun to stir. They can remain cold at will. And they doit for many and varied reasons. Sometimes their reasons are purelyselfish--they cannot or will not be bothered. Sometimes they allow asense of pique over some trifling grievance to inhibit their naturalinstincts. Sometimes because they shrink from the labors of motherhoodthey acquire a distaste for this whole side of married life. Andmeantime their husbands are men in whom ardent love naturally, inevitably, and rightly produces a desire for intimacy. They may bewilling to be patient. They may study their wives' moods, and try tolearn to be chivalrous lovers. But if day after day they meet with noresponse--if on the contrary they find their wives deliberatelychecking all response, is it not clear that a situation is created thatcannot but threaten married happiness? Is it not inevitable thathusbands so treated should begin to wonder whether their wives reallylove them? For love makes people unselfish, and equally it makes themunderstanding. On the other hand, when wives do understand, and learnin this respect to be generous, they bind their husbands to them in newchains of affection. In some husbands almost the strongest emotionthey have towards their wives is a sense of profound gratitude for agenerosity that made those wives willing to meet them again and againin love's high places, and allow them that ultimate expression oftheir passion through which nature is restored to balance and peace. And surely it might help wives to attain to that generosity if theywould but remember that it is love for them that kindles passion, andthat it is an ever-renewed sense of their lovableness that keeps theirhusbands so eager. 

But there is another strange reason that keeps some wives physicallyunresponsive, and so prevents any perfect sexual experience. It is areason that only operates with refined and spiritually minded women, and though its results may be very serious it seems to them a rightreason. What I am thinking of is a sense that it is not quite right orquite seemly or quite refined to allow the primitive instincts of thebody to awaken. In other words, such women are afraid of passion inthemselves, and suspect that it is not quite consistent with theirmoral and religious ideals to allow it to have sway. And so they neverfrankly and openly accept their own sexuality. It may be natural enoughin view of the terrible ways in which men and women have misused anddegraded passion. It is almost inevitable when women have been broughtup to believe that morality consists chiefly in self-suppression. None the less it is a mistaken, and ultimately an irreverent as well asa fatal misconception. It was Jesus who said, "He which made them atthe beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause shalla man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and theytwain shall be one flesh. " There is a place in the holy life for thefree, happy, and full expression of the instincts and desires that arerooted in our sex natures. The assumed inevitable opposition betweenbodily and spiritual functions has no real existence. We cannotspiritualize the body away. To neglect or simply to repress it is acourse that comes to no good. What we can do is to accept, understand, and then use it rightly. And when we do so it turns out that the freeand happy exercise of bodily function will harmonize with all the restof our life till body, soul, and spirit attain to harmony and unity. Ithink this reluctance to accept our real natures is wrong andunreasonable, but my chief feeling about it is a sense of pity thatwomen for reasons which seem to them good should none the less miss thejoy and exaltation which might be theirs, and should compel theirhusbands to suffer also. 

It is strange but it is true that the two commonest reasons for thefailure of marriage in this aspect of it are a lustful view of it and amistakenly spiritual view of it. A lustful view of it will lead peopleto be content with merely physical unity, though they are attaining tono union of their mental and spiritual lives. And that means thatmarriage is a very poor affair. But on the other hand this falselyspiritual view will lead to an attempt to leave the body out. And thatis a course of folly for incarnate spirits. The real end of marriage isa unity in which body, soul, and spirit will all play a part, andnothing else really satisfies. It has been wisely said that "there areliberating and harmonizing influences which are imparted by sexualunion and which give wholesome balance and sanity to the whole organismprovided that union is the outcome of psychic as well as physicalneeds. . . . Through harmonious sex relationships a deeper spiritualunity is reached than can possibly be derived from continence either inor out of marriage. "

The waiting-rooms of specialists in nervous disease are crowded by menand women suffering from nerve trouble through failure to attainharmonious sexual relations in married life. But many of them mighthave escaped that fate had they only been able to take the simpleChristian view of themselves and their natural functions. It was a Godof love who made us as we are, and we only interfere with His plans forus when we try on this earth to live as if we were out of it, or callthat unclean which in His wisdom He has set in the center of our life. 

III

BIRTH CONTROL

Not only because the subject of Birth Control occupies a very greatplace in the public attention just now, but also because it does raisevery important and real questions for married persons I wish to speakshortly of it here. 

Some day, perhaps, the medical profession will do the public the greatservice of issuing some authoritative statement about the physicalaspects of the matter, for there are issues with which only medical mencan deal wisely. 

And yet it is far from being only or even mainly a medical question. The moral and social issues involved in it are of great importance. 

It is now a matter of common knowledge that it is possible for twopersons to live together in sexual intimacy and yet avoid havingchildren. And this has created new problems for the married and newdangers for the unmarried. Probably it has had a great deal to do withthe recent increase of irregular sexual relationships outside marriage. The women whose sole motive for chastity was the fear of havingchildren and so of being openly disgraced are now set free to sinagainst the truth without fear of that particular penalty. 

I am not, however, in the meantime concerned with them. It is theproblem raised for married persons that concerns me. About two mainpoints I am quite clear. 

In the first place, for two healthy young persons to marry with thedefinite intention of having no children is, I believe, an unchristianthing. If they cannot afford to have children they cannot affordto marry. If at the beginning they interfere with nature they spoiltheir first experiences of sexual intimacy, which should be spontaneousand untrammelled. I even believe that artificial attempts to postponethe arrival of a first child are a deplorable mistake. The firstconsummation of love should be closely followed by parentage. Somecouples having followed the plan of postponing parentage have, when itwas too late, found that by this course they had forfeited thepossibility of that great privilege. Of course children mean very hardwork. Of course they restrict the freedom of parents to pursue theirown pleasure, and use up a large proportion of the family income. Butthese things are a blessing in disguise. Comparative poverty for youngcouples is a bracing and a useful discipline. Probably the cream of thenation consists of men and women reared in families of four or five, where the parents gave much individual attention to each child, and byself-denial helped them to a good start in life. When birth control isresorted to in order to avoid the labors of family life it is a purelyselfish and quite indefensible thing. 

I am thinking of course of healthy parents. Unhealthy parents probablyought not to have children at all. 

The second point I am clear about is that for most couples to have asmany children as is possible is equally indefensible. Most healthycouples could have far more children than they can do justice to. Infact the plan of unrestricted families results in a threefold wrong. Itis nothing less than cruel to women. The overburdened mothers who wereconfined once a year or once in eighteen months, never allowed toregain full strength between confinements, and made prematurely old, are, I hope, a thing of the past. Marriage on those terms did meanservitude. Further, the plan is cruel to children. They cannoton these terms receive sufficient attention. They are not given a fairstart in life, and in many cases do not even receive sufficient healthynourishment. These things are of course in part due to the artificialconditions of modern life. But the conditions are there and cannot beignored. And thirdly, the plan involves a wrong to society. We havegreat need of healthy well-trained children, but society as a wholesuffers when children are brought into the world who cannot be properlycared for. 

About this point I conceive there really cannot be any doubt whatever. And thus the problem of birth control forces itself upon our attention. It is a duty to women, to children, and to the state. The reallydifficult question is, "How is it to be achieved?"

One great Church in Christendom replies, "By continence, and by noother method. " And there are many who arrive at the same positionbecause they hold that sexual intimacy is only justified, andis only holy, when the deliberate purpose of producing children entersinto it. As I see the matter we come here to the central ethical issueof this whole matter. Is it true that sexual intimacy is only right andbeautiful when it is entered upon with a creative purpose, or is italso right and sacramental as an expression of mutual affection?Or put differently--granting that two persons have allowed their loveto lead to parentage, and have loyally accepted the burdens of familylife, may they rightly continue to live in intimacy after the point hasbeen reached at which they know they ought not to have any morechildren? It is at this point that people of unquestionable moralearnestness differ acutely, I am compelled to take my stand with thosewho believe that sexual intimacy is right and good in itself as anexpression of affection. It has, as a matter of fact, a good many otherconsequences than the production of children. It constitutes a bond ofvery great worth between two persons. It is in many interesting waysbeneficial to a woman's physical system; and it brings to men a generalbalance and repose of being which is of enormous value. I believe, infact, that in actual experience it does justify itself as a methodof expressing affection. 

The alternative for thousands of couples is not merely the cessation ofsexual intimacy, but also abstinence from all the endearing intimacieswhich are natural and spontaneous in married life. They must not onlysleep apart, but in many ways live apart. And this not only means painof heart such as would take a very great deal to justify it, but alsooften leads to serious nervous trouble because of the strain which itinvolves. I have insisted again and again in these pages thatcontinence is perfectly possible for unmarried men. But continence fora man living in the same house with a woman whom he loves, and withwhom he has had experience of sexual intimacy, is a very differentthing. It is possible for some--perhaps for many, and without seriousloss. But for many others it is not possible except on terms which leadto serious nervous trouble. And for such persons, and on the terms Ihave indicated, I believe conception control to be the better way. 

As to how that control should be achieved I have no special fitness tospeak. I would advise any couple, faced by the problem, to consult somedoctor of repute till they understand the matter, and then to find outfor themselves what is for them the right course to adopt. 

I know that for some people what is called the sublimation of sexualdesire provides a successful way of dealing with the situation. Theyfind themselves able without any emotional loss to divert to otherdirections and uses the energy of their sex natures. But it is amistake to imagine that what is possible for one couple is necessarilypossible for all. Attempts at sublimation often result in mererepression, and on the heels of that come serious troubles. 

CHAPTER XI

UNHAPPY MARRIAGES

A good deal has already been said in these pages about the causes offailure in marriage, but I feel that a more definite dealing with theproblem of unhappy marriages is called for. 

I do not recognize any problem in those cases where marriage has notbeen based upon love. When a man or a woman marries for financialreasons, or out of a desire for a certain place in society, or becauseof a mere desire to settle down in life, then he or she runs anenormous risk, and there is nothing to be surprised at if troublefollows. So close an intimacy as marriage involves is really onlytolerable when love constantly supplies reasons for patience, generosity and forgiveness. In fact by marrying for any other reasonthan love men and women only make the permanent and inevitable problemsof life a great deal harder to solve. And a human life does alwaysinvolve a problem either in or out of marriage. Life is a complex andperplexing business. 

But if it be true that many marriages begin with intense love and yetafter some time turn out unhappily, then a very real problem ispresented to our minds, and probably what I have already said about thewonder of sex love, and its harmonizing influence on personalities, hasaccentuated that problem for some of my readers. There are many wiveswho once loved their husbands intensely, but who are now laboriouslylearning to endure them. There are many husbands who felt that they hadattained to all that they longed for when they married, but who now arealmost giving up in despair the task of living even peaceably withtheir wives. Many such people are heard declaring that love isthe arch deceiver of the world, and that its power only lasts during afew short hours in the morning of life. For many the early andwonderful days of marriage remain only as a tormenting memory, soentirely has the color faded out of their lives. And I know that thepain of such situations is so intense that I would fain speak of themonly with consideration and sympathy. 

But none the less the broad fact has to be stated that in such cases itis not marriage that has failed but the people involved in marriage. There is nothing in the whole of life so beautiful or so holy but thatit can be spoilt when mishandled, and love is no exception to this. Ibelieve love is always felt as a call to unselfishness, but it is acall that can be resisted. And when it is resisted and two selfishpeople find themselves tied together for life, all the conditions ofmisery are present. Selfish people are nearly always unhappy people, and two unhappy people certainly cannot make a happy marriage. 

And yet these generalities do not carry us very far. Unless we candiscover in further detail why marriages fail, these things were betterleft unsaid. I believe, however, we can discover many of thereasons. 

To begin with, a good many unhappy husbands are idle men. Having nohard work to which they must give themselves daily, they have to try tofind interest in life in some other way. And because there is no otherway they inevitably find themselves threatened with boredom. Whiletheir love was new it seemed to them that it would fill life forever with romance and joy, but so soon as the first early stages ofmarriage were past they found it failing them. Such men almost alwaysbecome moody or restless or irritable, and if they are much at hometheir wives have to try to humor them through their troubles. It ismore than any woman ought to be asked to do, and more than any womancan continuously accomplish. If such men came home in the eveninghonestly tired through trying to do something worth doing they wouldfind their homes a delightful solace. But life's problem cannot besolved by an idle man, whether he be married or unmarried. 

And the same is true for idle wives, though there are not so many ofthem. When a woman has turned over to her servants all household caresand even the care of her children that she may run after pleasure shehas chosen to live on terms which never yet made anybody lastinglyhappy. We are by nature too big for that way of life, and sooner orlater it fails to make us even content. Love will light up with awonderful color lives that are given to honest work, but even lovecannot make idleness other than a wearisome career. Then there arecouples who have refused to have children. If the reason be that somepossibility of disease has made it seem wrong to have children, it maybe that both will learn to adapt themselves to this limitation and toachieve happiness in spite of it. Thousands of couples who arechildless against their own wills have learnt none the less to livetogether in lasting happiness. But when childlessness is the result ofa mere selfish policy, it often revenges itself upon the coupleconcerned. They have deliberately refused satisfaction to one of thedeepest instincts within them, and though they may not realize it, those suppressed instincts destroy their harmony of being. They do notface the fact that they have such instincts, because they could notmeet them with any adequate reason for suppressing them. They try todeceive themselves into believing that the instincts are not there, orthey repress them from selfish causes, and life does not let them off. Love remains unsatisfied. Its august claims have been refused. Andtherefore it does not and cannot continue to bring them joy. 

Another reason for unhappy marriages I have already spoken of in aprevious chapter. Sometimes they were marriages of passion and not oflove. Sometimes men and women allow themselves to be hurried into unionby the driving force of an almost impersonal thing that is purelyphysical in nature, and though they think they are acting out of love, they are leaving out the larger part of their natures. Mind and spiritmay have had no part at all in the transaction. And after such a stepthere is bound to come a painful awakening. After a while he or shewill find that in the most intimate part of married life only the bodyis acting, and then two people who have got very close to one anotherin one respect may yet find that they are still in many ways strangersto each other. That must always be a most critical situation. I believethat a successful way out of it might almost always be found, if onlythe two concerned would use much patience and would learn mutualaccommodation. But patience is not a universal possession either amongmen or women, and often rash and foolish things are said or done atsuch times which seem to break hopelessly the house of dreams which uptill then had seemed so beautiful and so permanent. 

If only men and women could learn that the love which makes happymarriages is _not_ mere passion, though it involves passion, a world oftroubles might be avoided. 

The plain though unpalatable truth about a great many marriages isthat, though there was love in them at the beginning, there was notenough of it. Often there was enough to make the man eager anddelighted to enjoy his wife when she was happy, but not enough of it tomake him able and willing to help her when she was depressed. There wasenough to make each able to take delight in the charms of the other, but not enough to make either willing to forgive the faults in theother, and help him or her to conquer them. There was enough for sunnydays but not enough for foggy ones--enough to produce laughter but notenough to beget patience--enough for admiration but not enough forunderstanding--enough for joy in the other's successes but not enoughfor helpfulness after the other had failed. Perhaps a woman will alwaysseem in some ways a queer creature to a man. It is certain that no manhas always understood any woman. And I suppose a man always seems attimes a strange, childish, and primitive being to a woman, so that shealso fails to achieve understanding. But when understanding has failedlove is put to one great test. Nothing can get a couple through timeswhen understanding has failed, except love. But love can do it whenthere is enough of it. 

Nor is that the hardest thing love has to do. There come times when, because nobody is always good, and most of us are often bad, love hasto face the plain fact of sin in the loved object. At such times toapprove is impossible, and would be a real disloyalty. To break outinto mere reproaches is futile and irritating. To do nothing is to leta seed of separation sink into the common life. Yet the situation canbe met. It can be met by real love, because love can forgive. Forgiveness does not mean condoning wrong. It does not mean blindness, which is never a helpful thing. It means loving the person who hasstumbled in spite of the fact, and even perhaps just because of it. Itis at such times that one who has failed most needs love, and whentherefore love gets a supreme chance. But if a husband or a wife hasnot enough love to take that chance, then marriage may fail. 

And here I am not talking about exceptional cases. Whoever you are, ifyou marry you are going to marry a sinner--a man or a woman who willsome day fall below his best self or her best self. And just becauseyou love it will bring you acute pain. You would do well to askyourself beforehand what you are going to do about it. And if youcannot feel that you could forgive and go on loving all the same, youwould do well to think again. The whole story of some unhappy marriagesis told in one sentence. There was love in them, but not enough toproduce forgiveness. Yet the ultimate proof that true love is divine inorigin lies just in the fact that true love _can_ forgive. 

All of which leads me on to the real reason why I write this chapter. Marriages often fail because people often fail, and people failultimately for one central reason--that they have not God in theirlives. I have read as much modern fiction as most people. And while Ihave plodded through elaborately told tales of the sufferings ofmarried people, my amazement has grown that these tales are almostwithout exception the stories of people who had no conscious relationto God. Their authors seem to think it a most interesting thing thatsuch lives should go wrong, and they base upon that fact the suggestionthat life is essentially a tragic and rather disappointing matter. Tome nothing seems more inevitable and more entirely explicable than thaton such terms life should fail, and should fail alike for the marriedand the unmarried. What could be more simple!

The essential greatness of man lies in the fact that he is capable offellowship with God. It is in realizing that fellowship that he trulycomes to himself. In nothing less than that can he ultimately findsatisfaction. The reason why all lesser experiences fail him is justthat he was made for something greater still. These lesser experienceswill carry him through the morning of life and past the usual time formarriage. But later on the unalterable facts about his nature begin toassert themselves. Though he does not always know it--often indeed doesnot know it--he begins to need his God. And till he finds God he iswrongly related to the whole universe. Though he will generally fightagainst it a certain sadness threatens to settle on his spirit. He willtry all the old joys; and though he may pronounce them still good, aquiet voice within will pronounce them not good enough. He cannot liveeven on human love, and a disturbing force will begin to trouble himeven when he is with the wife he has loved so well. And so marriagebegins to fail. 

I find the psychologists saying this with their peculiar vocabulary. They tell us that the individual has to achieve certain adaptations ifhe is to find his harmonious and balanced life. One of these is theadaptation to society; another is the adaptation to sex, and a third isthe adaptation to the infinite. If for "adaptation to the infinite" weput the time-honored phrase "reconciliation with God, " thenpsychologists and religious teachers will be found saying identicallythe same thing. And all three adaptations are necessary. Adaptationto sex alone is not enough. For those who do know God it turns out thattheir human fellowship based on love becomes so entirely at one withthe divine fellowship, that the two almost cease to be felt as two andcertainly the human fellowship is enormously enriched. But where thedivine fellowship is a thing unknown a certain deep-seated wearinessand loneliness will possess the man, let his human love be never sowonderful. 

What thousands of people are demanding of the universe is that thereshould be some way of solving life's problems without religion. Andlife in every century has gone on demonstrating that there is no way ofsolving them except through religion. I am using religion in thelargest sense, which is also the truest sense. I am not here concernedwith the dogmas of any particular church, nor with the question of theways in which religion shall express itself. The truth I am emphasizingis that without some conscious relation to his God man remains astranger in the world and an exile from his spiritual peace; and thatsuch men cannot be happy or satisfying husbands. And of course all thatI have written as if thinking only of husbands is equally true forwives. 

I have been the perplexed and sympathetic confidant of a number ofpeople who with dismay and sorrow were finding out that marriage wasfailing them. In almost all these cases religion had been simply passedby as a thing hardly relevant to real life, and it has been plainbeyond all question that the trouble in the sphere of marriage couldnot be mended till something had happened to the persons concerned--inother words, till they had learnt to seek and use the help of God. Andoften they know it for themselves. "I think what I really need is God, "said one very troubled wife to me a few years ago. But she had begunwith a long and moving story about her marriage. She indeed went on toask how God can be found, and it may be that some of my readers will atonce want to ask that question, I cannot attempt to deal with it hereand now. The first great step towards finding Him is to realize that weneed Him, and so to begin to seek Him. And for the rest I can only addthat thousands upon thousands have proved in life the truth of whatJesus claimed when He announced "I am the Way. " I have written thisbook largely because I have with reason and out of experience so greata faith in the possibilities of the love that is consummated inmarriage that I would fain testify to others concerning it. But I wouldnone the less like to warn any man or any woman lest he or she shouldimagine that by human love alone life's problem can be solved. WithoutGod we fail in life, and the bitterest part of the failure for many isthat even that beautiful and delicate thing marriage fails with therest. "We are restless till we rest in Thee, " and two restless heartscannot be happy hearts even though they be joined together in the bondsof love. 

CHAPTER XII

THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS

Let me begin this chapter with a query. Is not all the trouble in themodern world over the sexual element in life the evidence of somethingabnormal and distorted in the very constitution of modern society? Orput differently, would it not turn out that if only men and women wereset in just and healthy conditions, given real education and sufficientmeans of self-expression, the sexual problem would be found verylargely to have solved itself? I cannot offer any dogmatic answer tothat query, though I have my own conviction that history will one dayanswer it with an unmistakable affirmative. What we can do even now isto notice that every maladjustment in our present social life tends toincrease the amount of failure in true sex morality. All ourcallousness about social evils revenges itself upon us by confrontingus with an increasingly menacing problem in this connection, and allhonest service devoted to the increase of social health of any sort isalso helping our moral progress. 

And I wish to amplify this point because I hope some at least of thereaders of this book will find themselves asking eagerly what can bedone in view of the seriousness of sexual evil. If those who go wrongin sex matters are spoiling their lives at the core, which of us wouldnot like to do something to guard the young from wandering, and to helpto clean the modern world! Therefore it is a real satisfaction to beable to reply, as I do with complete conviction, "Anything you do tohelp to bring social justice and general health any nearer is alsohelping towards the solution of this one problem. "

Let us consider some of the outstanding social evils from this point ofview. 

I turn first to the matter of _education_ because it is the primaryissue in every connection. Now education that stops at fourteen ishardly worthy to be called education at all. It is after that age thatthose interests awaken which provide absorbing life for boys and girls, and ensure them against the pains and dangers of empty-mindedness. It is also after that age that most young folks learn the waysand means of self-expression. Probably also, at least in the caseof boys, the years between fourteen and sixteen are just the yearswhen the discipline of school life is most valuable, and it is certainthat during that period healthy games, played under the discipline ofsternly enforced rules, do most to put boys into possession ofthemselves, and to provide a wise outlet for their abundant energies. Consider then what happens so long as we continue to send boys out ofschool at the age of fourteen. They go with minds unawakened andtherefore empty. They face adolescence in almost complete freedom fromcontrol. They very often have far too little opportunity forinvigorating games, and they do not know how to express themselves, though vital energies are vibrant within them. It is only natural thatthey should find orderly ways of life very dull, and that in pursuit ofexcitement they should take to hooliganism. Not having learnt toappreciate either literature or art, they either read nothing or readstories that are neither true nor decent. They respond only to what ishighly spiced and have nothing in their minds to counter balance themeretricious attractions of suggestive stories and undesirable films. The truth about the people who are fond of "blue" stories is often(though not always) that those stories accurately indicate theirintellectual level. And the uneducated modern boy is often at thatlevel through no fault of his own. It actually is hard for men to whomthe wonder and the splendor of life have been revealed to find room intheir mental life for indecent trash. But till we really educate ourboys we are sending them out into life unarmed against some of itsworst features. 

And if the general failure of education has this deplorable effect, what shall we say of the complete lack of any special educationrelating to sex in at least a majority of modern schools? I know thatthat is a very difficult matter. I know that disaster may follow fromany attempt to do it in a general way through class teaching. I knowtoo that it ought to be done by parents. But it is not done, and bothboys and girls go out to face the dangers of life in town and countrywithout the knowledge of physical facts which might guide them intosafety. Actual immorality is indeed uncommon between the ages offourteen and seventeen, but those years are often spent in a way thatis the worst possible preparation for the struggle that is to come. 

I have put my main stress on the fact that education stops at fourteen, because to my mind that is the outstanding defect of our system. Buteven the education we do give is ill fitted to attain its true end. Itis not the fault of the teachers. Many of them do wonderful work, andlong to be allowed to do better work. But with classes of from fiftyto seventy the most heaven-born teacher in the world cannot achieve hispurposes. It is certain that lovers of purity who really understandhuman nature cannot be among the panic-stricken economists who want tostarve education. 

_Housing_

Housing evils are mainly of two kinds. Houses are often dark, damp, andevil-smelling, which means ill-health. And houses are often too small, which means that human beings are packed so closely that privacy isimpossible. Both results affect morality. A man below par in generalhealth is far more susceptible to the lure of evil than a reallyhealthy one. And the same is true of girls. There are to be found insome corners of our towns lewd and unwholesome-looking youths whosetalk and whose actions are unclean and sordid. We perhaps shudder as wepass by and sense what is their moral condition, but if we knew thehouses from which they come we might hardly wonder. Then plainly it ishostile to wholesome living when husband and wife cannot have asleeping-place separate from the rest of the family, and when growingboys and girls share the same room, so that natural modesty isconfronted with constant obstacles to its normal development. When Iwrote some pages back about the disciplinary value of the daily coldbath, I could hardly forbear stopping at that point to comment on thefact that that primary condition for bodily and moral health is beyondthe reach of millions. Our housing has not yet reached the bathroomstandard for the majority of our people. 

All these considerations are perfectly obvious and have often beenurged before. But though I have known of many cases where moral evilhas followed from bad housing conditions, I have known so manyinstances where in spite of bad housing conditions morality has beenperfectly preserved, that I do not make so much of this point as some. I have yet to learn that morality is made safe by the most elaborateand healthy housing conditions. It is true that the level of moralityis very low indeed in really overcrowded slums, but it also is truethat the section of the population among which real purity is mostcommon is the artisan section, and many of them have to contend withvery poor housing conditions. The Royal Commission on Venereal Diseasereported that while the class of casual laborers is the worst in thecountry, the next in the scale is the one described as "middle andupper classes". Traveling west in our cities does not mean travelingtowards morality. 

_Sweating_

There are three main directions in which sweating tends to increaseimmorality. In the first place low wages paid to men make marriage verydifficult, and sometimes impossible. And nothing could be worse for anycommunity than that healthy and robust men should be debarred frommarriage after twenty-one by purely material considerations. It is notimpossible for a man to remain chaste through a lifetime of celibacy, but for all that a society that enforces celibacy on men against theirwill is making immorality a practical certainty. 

A particularly mean form of this evil occurs in connection with theliving-in system which is imposed by a good many big shops on theiremployees. I used to know a number of young men of marriageable age whowere housed in a great and bare sort of barracks and given in additiona wage that was only enough to provide dress and necessary etceteras. If, desiring to marry, they said that they wished to live out and toreceive the equivalent of their board and lodging in money, they got inthose pre-war days £18 a year extra. Is it to be wondered at that inthat section of society it was a common saying that "only fools getmarried"? But it was not a chaste section of the community. Men arevery seldom chaste when they live in exclusively male communities. 

Then, secondly, sweating makes for immorality because it means thatgirls are paid wages which are quite insufficient to support life. Someof them live at home with their parents and so get through, but thosewho have to support themselves become subjected to a terribly severetemptation to add to their starvation wages by the sale of themselves. It is still in this way that a considerable percentage of theprostitutes of the country is created, and the number of girls who, though not known as prostitutes, have sacrificed their purity becauseof financial pressure must be very great. 

The word sweating also covers cases where workers are subjected tooverwork, and unduly long hours; and therefore under this head Imention the influence of the strain of long shop hours. The improvementhas been great of late in this respect, but still there are restaurantsand special shops where the strain on girls is very heavy. And theresult is that after work is over they are fit for nothing but walkingabout the streets in search of diversion. Many indeed who live inhostels have almost no choice between walking in the streets or goingto bed. There is no need to say more. First girls are renderednervously weary and yet eager for fresh air and movement, and then theyhave to face all that street life may mean. The recreations offeredthem in cinemas and music-halls are often calculated to give them justthe wrong sort of excitement. And so first they are bored by monotonyand long hours, and then played upon by rather low forms of suggestiveart. It is here that girls' clubs and troops of girl guides meet thereal needs of girls; and they probably constitute the finest influenceof the right sort which modern life offers them. 

_Luxury_

One of the most serious evils in the modern world is that a great manymen and women have far more money than is good for them, and that ofthese a considerable number are not under any necessity to work. Nothing in all the wide world is worse for a man than to have lots ofmoney and nothing to do. It is among these men that the patrons ofexpensive vice are to be found. Of necessity such men are bored byordinary life. For life without work in it is always boring. It followsthat they must seek excitement, and a very short time suffices for themto get all the excitement possible out of innocent recreations. Wherefore in pursuit of something to stir them they take to thediversions that are not innocent, and often try to exploit their ownpassions to give color to life. Their expensive and luxurious ways oflife constitute one of the worst moral forces in the community. Theykeep in existence to pander to their desires large numbers ofsubordinates whose lives are also worthless and without any productivevalue. It is because of them that the life of a courtesan seems tooffer golden prizes to some, and the hope of reaping such prizesdeludes many. Because this is a materialistic age their money givesthem powers to which they have no moral right, and no more wholesomething could happen to the whole community than that the necessarychanges should be worked out which would make such noxious dronesimpossible in the future. It is for these people that sweated workersdrudge and sweat. And then, under our curious and indefensible laws ofinheritance, it is possible for wealth thus created to be passed onfrom generation to generation, creating for each in turn the worstpossible conditions for true life. It is utterly unreasonable to hopethat we shall ever as a nation attain to moral health until this evilhas been dealt with. It seems to matter little whether such people aremarried or unmarried; in both conditions they make havoc of sexuallife, and poison society. 

_Drink_

I have kept to the last the social evil which more than all the othersput together tends to produce sexual immorality. As I have alreadysaid, it is a comparatively rare thing for a man to "go wrong" for thefirst time when he is entirely sober. It is Bacchus that conducts meninto the courts of Venus. Mr. Flexner, who for scientific reasons madea comprehensive study of Prostitution in Europe, reports that in everycountry the whole traffic is "soaked in drink. " There are inhibitionsin our humanity which make sexual vice repulsive to our taste, andthere are few who can get past these inhibitions until alcohol hasdeadened their better feelings. Man after man has told me that it wasafter some festive night when he had taken more wine than ever beforethat he first fell. Unmarried mothers have told me that what happenedon the night that was fatal to them was that they were cajoled intotaking champagne or whisky, and after that could not well remember whattook place. 

It is not too much to say that until we have grappled with the drinkevil in our midst we cannot possibly hope to master this greater evilwhich follows on the heels of intemperance. This one considerationalone would make me an enthusiastic prohibitionist. We have tried lifeon the present terms and it has beaten us. We have allowed the commonsale of a drug that is the proved enemy of our best life. It hasdamaged us physically, industrially, and financially. But its mostdeadly damage has been done in connection with our sexual life. It notonly misleads the unmarried, but in many homes it is daily destroyingall possibility of married happiness. No doubt the difficulties oftemperance reform are very great. But the real cause of the delay ofeffective reform is want of will in the community as a whole. I cannotbut think that if the deadly and intimate connection between drink andsexual vice were realized, the will to effective reform might appearamong us. 

When I consider all the forces which I have thus briefly reviewed, andremember that behind them there is the power of a central and universalhuman instinct, I no longer wonder that sexual follies abound in ourcountry, and that we have not yet solved the problem of purity. What Ido wonder at is that there are hundreds of thousands of young men andwomen who, in spite of all these facts, insist on living clean and purelives. There is something in human nature that fights very hard for thetrue way of life. Boys and girls with bad hereditary influences tohamper them, and brought up in very unfavorable surroundings, do yetconstantly refuse to succumb. Even those who have made mistakesconstantly refuse to be beaten, and hold on tenaciously to the narrowway. Though the modern world has been deluged with novels written todisplay sexual irregularities in a romantic light, and to expresscontempt for Christian moral standards, and though no doubt thousandshave been misled, it remains true that surprisingly large numbersrefuse to be befooled in such ways. I believe the reason is that, strong as mere physical desire may be, love is a stronger thing still. And it is the power of love that keeps many right. In many men it islove for an ideal woman that does it. They keep themselves from evilbecause, though they may never have met her, they believe one day theywill, and they want to bring her their best selves without any spot ofdefilement. In many girls love works in the same redemptive way. Andperhaps in both what is really working is a mystic longing after thebest that life can hold, and a half-conscious understanding that thatbest is only for those who preserve unity between body and spirit, andkeep the body in bonds until the pure command of love itself summons itto freedom. 

And yet it is infamous that the struggle should be so hard for so many. All of us who are ignorant or complacent or skeptical about the socialevils of our time are sharers in the iniquity of those who fall. Manyof us live in mean satisfaction, just because we ourselves have foundcomfort and security; that is how these evil forces are able to go onyear after year leading thousands to their undoing. If the test of areal passion for purity lies in caring about the forces that make forimpurity and caring to the point of suffering for those who fall, thenI fear few of us have that passion in any really effective and holyform. And it will need passion to compete with the forces that liebehind evil social conditions. They are entrenched behind the power ofmoney, and I know of only one passion that is stronger than money. 

When will all who really love take up the challenge of this disorderedmodern world? We talk. We confer. We discuss social reform. But we donot love. And that is why Mammon is able to laugh at us, and go ondragging our boys and girls down into the mire. 

CHAPTER XIII

FORGETTING THE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND

I have implied in this book that the very best in sexual experience isonly for those who keep themselves unspotted in early life, and whocome to the sacrament of marriage with no previous and lower experienceof sex intimacy. I am even sure that the very best is spoilt a littleby all previous unworthy thinking, and by all perverse practices. 

I know that that will sound a hard saying to very many, for there arefew who have fulfilled these conditions for knowing the best. It mustseem to them that I am practically saying to them, "You can never nowenter into the holy of holies. " Yet I cannot alter what I have said, however acute may be my sympathy with those who have stumbled. Ibelieve it is true, and no good ever came of hiding the truth. It isbecause it is true that I have such confident hope for mankind. Men andwomen do in their hearts want the very best, and when they come to knowwhat are the only terms on which that very best can be had they will, Ibelieve, accept those terms. 

But this would be a cruel book, and a false book too, were I to implythat there is no way in which the past can be forgotten and forgiven, and no way into purity and joy even for those who have wandered. Werethat so I could not write at all about this subject, for it would thenbe too tragic. 

Perhaps the worst consequence of aberrations in thought and conduct isthat they make it very very hard to be perfectly happy and unashamedwhen at last love calls them to enter into the inner chambers ofmarriage and romance. The shadows that rest at times on that part ofmarriage even for some very happy lovers are due to the fact that theman (or sometimes the woman) was once involved in something else beforethat was a little like it, and yet was haunted then by a sense ofwrong-doing and so could not have a perfect experience. It is only tothe pure that _all_ things are pure. 

But it is _not_ true that the past need dog and spoil the future. It isnot true that sin is irremediable, nor that its stains remain for ever. The essential and central thing in Christianity is the assertion thatthere is a remedy for the situation that sin creates. 

I do not think there is any remedy to be found in simply trying toignore the past--or in saying that our aberrations were only those ofninety per cent. Of mankind, and were so natural as to be not worthbothering about. In such ways we may push the past out of sight, but wedo not deal with it. It remains there though out of sight. For the factis that such sayings do not quite convince us, and therefore theycannot kill the past. 

Nor is there any remedy to be found merely in the forgiveness of man orof woman. Women are proverbially, and perhaps divinely, willing toforgive. But a woman's forgiveness does not necessarily make a man ableto forgive himself. Nor does it always cleanse an unclean inner life. To many a man it has been just the fact that his fiancée or wife was sosublimely willing and able to forgive that has revealed to him his ownunworthiness and made it sting the more. 

No! there has got to be something much more drastic in our lives if weare to get free from shame and remorse. We have got to go down intothat stony valley of humiliation where men and women face the nakedfacts before their God, and stop all attempt to hide or to deceive. Wehave got to stop the sophistries which are so dear to us, and throughwhich we try to put the blame on others, or on circumstance, or onfate. We have got to face the fact that the evil things--whatever theywere, either small or great--happened because we were weak--because weput pleasure before duty--because we gave in to lust, or evilsuggestion, or a craven longing to please the flesh. Yes! They happenedbecause we were weak, and that is a horrible thing to have to admit. Yet admitting it is the only way to regain contact with the truth. Andwhat next? The next thing is that in that extremity we find God. Itmight seem that He would probably be the last one to be found throughhumiliation and the open admission of being impure. But in actualexperience that is how He is found. That is His way--to meet the manwho has discovered his own insufficiency--to intervene at the desperateminute--to reveal to incarnate weakness His eternal strength--to give astrange assurance that He Himself is about to enfold the man or womanin His power, and tale charge of the future. And when that has happeneda man knows what to do with his past. He can leave it with God, andthen it loses at once all power to haunt him or put him to shame. Itwas unclean, but the cleansing fires of the divine love have taken itin charge, and its power is broken. That is something very differentfrom trying to hide it or trample upon it. That is really killing it, and after that a man both may and can forget. 

"If any man be in Christ he is a new creature. " That is literally trueeven in this connection. Spiritually a man ceases to be the same personas the one who was once so weak and unclean. He has entered a newspiritual country. 

Experience has proved all this over and over again. Men who in earlyyouth were wild have by the grace of God become so essentially pure asto become capable of true and blessed experiences of love and all thatlove leads to with a fine woman. But it does need the grace of God. Those who attempt simply to forget and make light of their earlyfollies do not escape from them. 

And why should I not boldly say the same thing--exactly the same thing--about a woman? It is certainly true. No one seriously believes thatthe redeeming grace of God, which is sufficient for all other sins, fails before this one. No one who has understood Christ doubts that Hecan make a new woman, and a pure and noble woman, out of one who hasstumbled. And yet curiously society has never learnt to forgive women. A man is allowed to forget the things which are behind. Generally awoman is compelled to remember them till the very end. I shall neverforget being once at a meeting of men in New York where a very greatAmerican woman spoke to us all on this subject. She pointed out to usthat society had never learnt to control the evils of this part of lifebecause it had never learnt to adopt the method of Jesus, which wasfrank and full forgiveness. We have been afraid. We have thought itwould be socially disastrous. But Jesus had no hesitation in His voicewhen He said to a penitent Magdalene, "Neither do I condemn thee, goand sin no more. " Of course she sinned no more. There is in all theuniverse no constraining force like that combination of forgiveness andtrust. 

I am sure we cannot make our standard too high. I am sure we need toguard against all compromise in thought with its august demands. But Iam equally sure we need to learn to forgive generously if we are everto help those who have stumbled. Forgiving sinners does not meancondoning sin, else could there never be any divine forgiveness. Whatit does mean is loving the persons concerned. Till we learn to exercisethat divine art, we do but shut the doors of hope against sinners andpush them farther down. 

Of course this means that for a pagan society there is no choicebetween a sternly cold and cruel morality on the one hand, and licenseon the other. For pagans cannot forgive. They alternate between a moralindifference in which there is no hope for anybody, and a cold andcallous condemnation of sinners which is both hypocritical and cruel. We have all seen both policies in action and know how hopeless theyboth are. But in exact proportion as we learn to think and feel withChrist we shall learn to forgive, and so doing shall begin to havemastery over the evils in sex life that spring from ignorance, waywardness, want of discipline, and the misunderstanding of love. History is one long record of how by the force of law and by alternateseverity and carelessness the human race has tried to find for itselfthe right path through this special country. But the record is largelyone of failure. There is no way of success for a society that dependsupon such forces. Here as in a dozen other connections the only way tolife is that Christian way which the world has so largely repudiated. Mankind want to make a success of their life in this world--want tomake the most possible of it--but they want it apart from theleadership of Christ, and so they miss it. He can show us the way oflife if we will but listen, but no other can. 

And His way is always and altogether the way of love--love that cantame the brute in us and make it a servant--love that can transformpassion into a holy fire--love that makes men patient and womengenerous--that takes the common things of life and makes them sacred--and above all love that can hate sin with fierce sincerity, and yetlove and forgive sinners. 

It is after this fashion that God loves us. We must so love one anotherif we are to make human life great. 

There is another and a larger sense in which there is need that weshould forget the things which are behind. We need as a race to escapefrom an evil past. Our greatest danger in this whole connection is thedanger of moral skepticism. "Sex vice has always been common, " men saywith truth; and then with fatal unreason they add, "and always willbe. " That way lies sheer disaster. The whole situation calls for faithin man's future--faith in his capacity for purity--faith in love. Andthat faith is really but a part of any true faith in God. 

In the past even Christian people have tried to evade the problem ofsex. The truth about it has not been openly sought. Its challenge hasnot been bravely met. Its possibilities have not been realized. Andtherefore fears, sufferings, excesses, cruelties, and injustice towomen have degraded our common life. The whole matter is central forour civilization. While we think and work for reconstruction we woulddo well to remember that there can be no happy and harmonious life forus till this whole problem has been solved--till we have learnt toenthrone pure love in our midst and by its passionate and cleansingpower to subdue the brute and exercise our complete humanity to theglory of God. Love never faileth. It purifies passion and dominates theflesh. If we believe in God we needs must believe in the triumph oflove; and that means a divine consummation at last to all ourwanderings and struggles in connection with Sex. 

APPENDIX

A BRIEF SKETCH OF SOME OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTS

BY

A. CHARLES E. GRAY, M. D. (ED. )

APPENDIX

SOME OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTS

Of all the vital forces with which living things are endowed, the twomost potent are the instinct for self-preservation and the instinct forrace-preservation. This latter gives rise to the reproductive urge. Sodeep-seated is this instinctive force, that in many instances in thevegetable world, the threat of individual death results in a specialeffort of reproduction and the individual dies to live in the nextgeneration. A force which is thus so insistent in the whole animal andvegetable world is naturally not absent in the human being, and it iswell we should definitely recognize the fundamental power of this, inevery normal man and woman. Not seldom the reproductive instinct isspoken of as a thing which can be put on one side and ignored. Allexperience and history prove that this is impossible, and that theattempt to do so ends in failure and disaster. But in civilizedcommunities it is equally impossible to allow such a force to rangeunrestrained, hence the laws and customs of modern peoples. But mereassent to external authority can never achieve more than partialsuccess. What is needed is whole-hearted agreement with an ideal whichcan only be attained by education of every individual in a realunderstanding of themselves and their responsibilities in sex matters. It is due to the fault of parents and teachers, rather than their own, that many men and women are to-day paying the penalty of having misusedor abused this divinely implanted instinct. 

_The Law of Bi-sexual Reproduction_

It is one of Nature's plans that in the genesis of a new individual twoindividuals should take a share. This holds good throughout the wholerange of living things except the lower forms of plant and animal life, such as fungi and animalcule. But, with one or two individualexceptions, as plants and animals evolve, the union of two elements, male and female, is needed to start the amazingly complex process ofbuilding a new individual. Thus in flowers the stamens, the pollenbearers, provide the male element which, through the intermediary ofthe pistils, fertilizes the egg in the vesicle. In the higher animalsthe egg or ovum is produced by the female, and is fertilized by thesperm-cell produced by the male. The necessary union between these twoessential elements is attained in various ways. Thus the female salmondeposits her eggs on a convenient spot in the bed of a stream and theattendant male salmon then projects over them the spermatozoa. In thehigher animals there is a further development, and special organs areevolved to ensure the conjunction of the two elements. I have not spaceto describe in detail the effect of this union of the two cells, generally spoken of as fertilization. It may be found fully recordedstep by step in any biological manual. Very briefly, the sperm-cells, which are active, freely moving units, swarm round the egg-cell and oneof them eventually enters it. The essential part of the cells, namelythe nuclei, coalesce into one nucleus, and an active process of celldivision and multiplication is at once started. The single cell dividesinto two daughter cells, then again into four, and so on. Very early indevelopment, the cells, which at first appear similar, becomedifferentiated into different types, but the whole ordered sequence ofthe development of an embryo is achieved by this cell division andmultiplication. Each original cell contains a substance which, onaccount of its being easily colorable with artificial stains, is calledchromatin, and this chromatin is believed to be the bearer of thehereditary qualities. The cell division is so arranged that each newcell receives an equal share of the male and female chromatin, and thisprocess is continued in every case of cell division, so thateventually, in every part of our bodies, the dual inheritance remainscomplete. 

But though both parents have thus an equal share in the cellularelements of the new life, it is the female whose reproductive organsprovide for its nourishment and protection until birth takesplace. 

_The Human Sex Organs_

In the female these consist of the womb or uterus, the ovaries, and acanal called the vagina which leads from the lower end of the uterus toan external opening, the vulva. The ovaries, two in number, aresituated one on each side of the uterus. The uterus, which ispear-shaped, with the apex downwards, has three openings, one at theapex and one at each side at the upper part. These two upper openingsare provided with a tubule extension, the Fallopian tubes, whose outerends are fringed and lie in close relation to the ovaries. The ova oregg-cells are developed in the ovaries, and through a complex andelaborate process a single cell comes to maturity from time to time. Itis then discharged into the open end of the Fallopian tube, reachesthereby the uterus, and if not fertilized is discharged through thelower opening of the uterus into the vagina. It is not known exactlywhen this discharge of ova takes place, but it is believed to coincidemore or less with the monthly period. If, however, fertilization of theovum takes place, it is not discharged, but remains in the uterus. Thelining membrane of the uterus grows round and envelops it, and thewonderful process of cell division and multiplication proceeds whichresults in the growth and development of a child. 

These various organs are situated in the lower part of the abdomen, within the protection of the bony pelvis or basin. This pelvis is, compared with the male pelvis, broad and shallow, to provide for thepassage of the fully developed child at birth. The vagina is thepassage by which, during the birth process, the child reaches the outerworld, and it is also the sex organ by which, in the female, the unionof the male and female elements, of which we have spoken, takes placein the sex act. 

The male sex organs consist of the testicles, in which the sperm-cellsor spermatozoa are evolved, of a coiled duct leading there from, and ofthe distinctive male sex organ, the penis. This last serves the doublepurpose of providing an exit for the contents of the bladder and forthat emission of the spermatozoa which occurs in the sex act. There arealso certain glands situated in close relation to this duct whichprovide a fluid which is emitted at the same time as the spermatozoa, the whole being termed the seminal fluid. It is thus clear that in bothsexes there are essential reproductive organs, the ovaries in the onecase, the testicles in the other, providing respectively ova andsperm-cells, and there are also organs for the purpose of securing theunion of these two elements, namely the vagina in the female and thepenis in the male. These two sets of organs form the primary sexcharacteristics or actual sex organs. 

_The Sex Act_

The special process which secures this union of the male and femaleelements is termed copulation or coitus. It takes place in allwarm-blooded animals, as well as many others, but in man, with hishighly developed mental and psychical qualities, it is a truly complexexperience in which body, mind and soul all take their part. 

Physically its central fact is the ejaculation of the seminal fluid bythe male and its reception by the female, and this culmination with itspsychical concomitants is spoken of as the orgasm. Before coitus isfeasible, the organs designed for the purpose have to be brought intoan appropriate state for its consummation. The penis and the vulva arealike furnished with erectile tissue. The penis has to be erected inorder to penetrate into the vagina, while the female organs add theirshare in facilitating the act both by the erection of the tissue roundthe vulva and by the outpouring of a lubricating secretion which bathesall the parts. The mechanism of this is a nervous one, and itsoriginating cause while partly physical is chiefly mental, due to theemotions aroused by love and courtship, and thus in every act of coitusproperly realized, an essential preliminary is an abbreviatedcourtship. This initial stage has been described as the stage oftumescence, and is succeeded by the introduction of the male organ intothe vagina. A motor nerve discharge follows which produces ejaculationof the seminal fluid and is for the male the climax of the orgasm. Thefemale is, however, by no means passive; motor nerve discharges takeplace leading to rhythmic contraction of the vagina, and sheexperiences, or should experience, a similar orgasm to the male. Theclimax is followed in both by a feeling of satisfaction and reposewhich generally issues in refreshing sleep. It is to be noted, however, that in the female the whole process is apt to be slower than in themale. Her orgasm frequently coincides with the male, but often it comeslater. If this is not realized by her partner, and inconsiderate hastebe practiced, then, in place of satisfaction, a state of nervoustension may remain, which is not only psychically deleterious, but, ifrepeated, may lead to actual illness. 

I have spoken of the sex act as it should be, a fine and loftyemotional experience of two people between whom is the bond of love. Itis true that in the female an entirely passive part is physiologicallypossible, and it is also true that in the male, who is biologically thehunting and pursuing animal, spontaneous desires arise from time totime which are too often accorded a bodily and disharmonioussatisfaction. Disharmonious because it cannot be too strongly insistedupon that the completely satisfactory realization of the sex actinvolves the participation of every side of human nature, spiritual andphysical, and is the outcome of an intense desire for perfect unitywith the beloved. Hence mere bodily satisfaction of sensuous desiremust have a disharmonious and deteriorating effect, because it ignoresa basal fact of man, namely spirit, and leaves that side of him starvedand unsatisfied. And the same is true of all sexual aberrations andperversions. Though they may seem at the moment to be unimportant, thefact remains that they are sins against both the spirit and the flesh, and are followed inexorably by their own punishment. 

It is argued by some that the sexual act should be restricted tooccasions, when there is a definite intention of begetting children. This does not seem either reasonable or desirable. Nature's plans werecertainly, in the case of human beings, not constructed on that basis. It would introduce an element of calculation and deliberation into whatis naturally a finely spontaneous thing, and it would put a quiteunnecessary, and in some cases, at least, a harmful, strain upon twopeople. As Havelock Ellis has put it: "Even if sexual relationships hadno connection with procreation whatever, they would still bejustifiable, and are, indeed, an indispensable aid to the best moraldevelopment of the individual; for it is only in so intimate arelationship as that of sex that the finest graces and aptitudes oflife have full scope. " This does not imply that married life does notcall for the exercise of self-restraint and continence, in this as inother respects. 

Those who regard marital relations as an opportunity for unbridledsexual indulgence are not likely to win success in an adventure ofconsiderable difficulty in which all that is fine in man or woman willfind full scope for development. But it does mean that sexual intimacyhas a value in itself as an expression in the terms of the body of thelove which unites husband and wife, and that, when duly controlled, itleads to health and general harmony.